i^i^'.y- 









mM 









iJlr. iFififec'fi E)i£itortcaI Wox^ka, 



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I NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND. With Maps. 

Crown Svo, $1.65, net. 
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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston. 



NEW FRANCE AND 
NEW ENGLAND 



BY 



JOHN FISKE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(3tfte Jliiterifitie prc^s, Cambribgc 

1902 



t- 







COPYRIGHT 1902 BY ABBY M. FISKE, EXECUTRIX 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published September, iqos 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

THE place of the present volume in the 
series of Mr. Fiske's books on Amer- 
ican history may best be indicated by 
a few words from his preface to " The Dutch 
and Quaker Colonies in America." That work, 
it will be remembered, comes next in order after 
" The Beginnings of New England," and in 
describing its scope Mr. Fiske remarks: " It is 
my purpose, in my next book, to deal with the 
rise and fall of New France, and the develop- 
ment of the English colonies as influenced by 
the prolonged struggle with that troublesome 
and dangerous neighbour. With this end in 
view, the history of New England must be taken 
up where the earlier book dropped it, and the 
history of New York resumed at about the same 
time, while by degrees we shall find the histo- 
ries of Pennsylvania and the colonies to the 
south of it swept into the main stream of Conti- 
nental history. That book will come down to the 
year 1765, which witnessed the ringing out of 
the old and the ringing in of the new, — the one 
with Pontiac's War, the other with the Stamp 

V 



vi PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

Act. I hope to have it ready in about two years 
from now." This preface bears the date of May- 
day, 1899. 

It will be seen that " New France and New 
England " completes the story of the settlement 
and development of the colonies up to the point 
where Mr. Fiske's "American Revolution " has 
already taken up the narrative. It therefore 
gives a final unity to the sequence of remark- 
able volum.es which he has devoted to American 
history. 

The lamented death of the brilliant author 
prevented him from giving the final touches to 
his work. Most of the material for it was de- 
livered as lectures before the Lowell Institute 
during the last winter of his life ; but only the 
first two chapters received his definite revision 
for the press. The third chapter was unfinished, 
but has been completed by a few pages, en- 
closed in brackets, and prepared in accordance 
with Mr. Fiske's own memoranda indicating 
what incidents he proposed to include in the 
remaining paragraphs. The other chapters were 
in the form of carefully prepared lectures, but 
were not equipped with the side-notes and an- 
notations calling attention to authorities, such as 
Mr. Fiske supplied freely in his " Discovery of 
America " and other volumes. From the third 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE vii 

chapter onward, it has been thought best to 
provide such topical notes and references as may- 
prove helpful to the reader. These notes are 
enclosed in brackets. 

The text of all the chapters has been printed 
as it left his hand. Though he doubtless would 
have touched it here and there either for adorn- 
ment or for a more exact precision of detail, it 
will on that account possess no less interest for 
the readers of that notable series of historical 
writings to which this volume now gives the 
desired continuity and unity. 
4 Park Street, Boston 
Autumn, 1902 



^ 






w. f^/^^ 



l/^m 



' / CONTENTS 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 

Norman sailors ..... 

On the coast of Africa .... 

Breton ships on the Banks 
Alleged discovery of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
The Portuguese voyages to North America 
Verrazano ...... 

Francis I. and the demarcation line 

Verrazano' s purpose 

The Sea of Verrazano . 

Death of Verrazano . 

Jacques Cartier . 

The exploration of the St. Lawrence 

The name " Canada" 

Hochelaga 

An Indian trick . 

Cartier arrives at Hochelaga 

Hochelaga a typical Iroquois town 

The name " Montreal " . 

Distresses of the winter . 

Indian tales .... 

Roberval .... 

Cartier' s voyage, 1541 

Jean Allefonsce tries to explore the Sea of Verrazano 

Errors in regard to the voyage of Allefonsce 

The true direction of Allefonsce' s voyage . 



PAGE 
I 

2 

4 

4 



9 
1 1 
12 

13 
H 
15 
16 
16 

17 
18 
20 
20 
22 
22 

23 

24 

26 

27 



CONTENTS 



Allefonsce visits the Hudson 

The character of Roberval 

The romance of Roberval's niece 

Suspension of French exploration 

Ribaut in Florida .... 

Importance of Dieppe in the traffic of the sea 



28 
30 
31 

32 
33 

33 



II 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 



Voyage of the Marquis de la Roche . . -35 

Pontgrave and Chauvin secure a monopoly of the fur- 
trade . . . . . . . -36 

De Chastes succeeds Chauvin . . . . 38 

The early life of Champlain . . . . -39 

Champlain in the West Indies .... 40 

Champlain' s first voyage to Canada . . . .42 

The disappearance of the Iroquois village of Hochelaga 42 
The Iroquois displaced by the Algonquins . . 43 

The Iroquois Confederacy ..... 46 

Outlying tribes of Iroquois . . . . .48 

Designs of the Sieur de Monts .... 49 

Homeric quarrels ...... 50 

Occupation of Acadia . . . . . 51 

Founding of Port Royal, later Annapolis . . -52 

Champlain explores the New England coast . . 52 

A second exploration of the Massachusetts coast . '54 

A picturesque welcome . . . . . 55 

The Knightly Order of Good Times . . '57 

Collapse of de Monts' monopoly . . . 58 

Champlain turns his attention to Canada . . • 5^ 

The expedition of 1608 ..... 60 

Quebec founded ....... 60 

Treachery foiled . , . . . . 61 



CONTENTS XI 

The first winter at Quebec . . . . .62 

Friendship with the Indians the condition of successful 

exploration . . . . . . 63 

This cojidition determines the subsequent French 

policy . . . . . . . -63 

Character of the Indians of Canada ... 64 

Champlain allies himself to the Ottawas and Hurons . 64 

A war party . . . . . . . 65 

Consultation of departed heroes . . , • ^1 

Lake Champlain . . . . . . 67 

War dances ....... 68 

The Mohawks panic-stricken by firearms • . 69 
The first battle of Ticonderoga sows the seed of deadly 

hostility between the French and the Iroquois . 70 



III 



THE LORDS OF ACADIA. LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 

Poutrincourt returns to Port Royal, 1610 . . . 72 

Remoter consequences of the death of Henry IV. . 73 

The far-reaching plans of the Jesuits . . -74 

They secure an interest in Acadia . . . 75 

Madame de Guercheville obtains from Louis XIII. a 

grant of the coast from Acadia to Florida . . 76 

La Saussaye in Frenchman's Bay . . . -76 

The French captured by Argall . . . . 77 

Argall's trick 78 

Argall returns and burns Port Royal . . . 79 

Champlain helps in the destruction of an attacking party 

of Iroquois ....... 80 

Beginnings of Montreal . . . . .81 

The Count of Soissons and the Prince of Conde succeed 

Monts 8 2 

A traveller's tale ...... 82 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



Champlain among the Ottawas, 1613 . . • 83 

Vignau's imposture discovered . . . , 85 

Champlain returns from France with the RecoUets . 86 

Le Caron reaches Lake Huron . . . . 86 

The attack on the Iroquois . . . . -87 

Champlain's military engines .... 88 

Rivalry of interests . . . . . .89 

The coming of the Jesuits . . . . . ' 89 

The One Hundred Associates . . . .90 

Religious uniformity . . . . . . 91 

The capture of Quebec by the English . . .92 

Champlain's last days . . . . . 92 

James I. grants Acadia to Sir William Alexander . 93 

Claude and Charles de la Tour .... 93 

Legend of La Tour's fidelity to France . . '94 

La Tour and D'Aunay ..... 94 

Death of D'Aunay . . . . . .96 

La Tour gives place to Sir Thomas Temple . . 96 



IV 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 



Jean Nicollet . . . . . . .98 

Nicollet explores Lake Michigan .... 99 

Father Jogues near Lake Superior . . . . 1 00 

Radisson and Groseilliers . . . . .101 

Accession of Louis XIV. . . . . .101 

His changes in Canadian administration. . . 102 

Two expeditions against the Iroquois, 1666 . .102 

Contrasts between New France and New England . 104 

The French trading route to the Northwest . .105 

The coureurs de bois . . . . .105 

Father AUouez on the Wisconsin . . , .106 



CONTENTS 



Xlll 



The French take possession of the Northwest 
Father Allouez depicts the greatness of Louis XIV. 
Early Hfe of La Salle . . . . , 

La Salle comes to Canada .... 
La Salle hears of the Ohio and resolves to explore it 
His expedition combined with a mission exploration 

the Sulpicians .... 

The way blocked by the Senecas 
Meeting with Joliet .... 
La Salle parts from the Sulpicians 
La Salle explores the Ohio 
Frontenac succeeds Courcelles 
Character of Frontenac 
Joliet chosen to explore the Mississippi 
Marquette ..... 

Joliet and Marquette reach the Mississippi 
They pass the mouth of the Missouri 
The return .... 
La Salle's great designs 
The Mississippi valley to be occupied 
Difficulty of carrying out so vast a plan 
La Salle's privileges arouse opposition 
Fort Frontenac granted to La Salle . 
La Salle builds the Griffin . 
Henri de Tonty 
Louis Hennepin 
The voyage of the Griffin 
La Salle's terrible winter journey 
Fresh disasters .... 
La Salle goes to rescue Tonty 
Destrucdon of the Illinois village by the Iroquois 
La Salle's winter voyage down the Mississippi 
La Salle returns to France .... 
Failure of the Mississippi expedition 
La Salle's death .... 



of 



107 

[08 

[09 

10 

1 1 

1 1 

I 2 
13 
H 
15 
15 
16 

17 
'7 
18 

19 

20 

20 
21 
22 

23 
24 
24 
25 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 

30 
30 
31 
31 
[32 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 



Louis XIV. commutes the sentence of death imposed 
upon alleged witches .... 

The parliament of Normandy protests 

The belief in witchcraft universal 

Vitality of the belief ..... 

Cause of the final decay of the belief . 

Rise of physical science .... 

An English witch trial before Sir Matthew Hale 

Grotesque evidence ..... 

Indications of shamming ignored . 

Sir Matthew Hale affirms the reality of witchcraft 

Revival of witchcraft superstition 

The Hammer of Witches .... 

King James on the reality of witchcraft . 

The delusion increases with the rise oi the Puritan party 
to power ....... 

Last executions for witchcraft .... 

Primitive America regarded as a domain of the Devil 

The first victim of the witchcraft delusion in New Eng- 
land ........ 

The case of Mrs. Hibbins 

A victim of malice acting through superstition 

A sensible jury ..... 

The Goodwin children .... 

Cotton Mather ..... 

His character ...... 

His courage in advocating inoculation . 

Views of Calef and Upham .... 

Mr. W. F. Poole 

Cotton Mather and the Goodwin case 

Cotton Mather and the Goodwin girl . 



33 
34 
35 
36 

37 
38 
38 
39 

'39 

[40 

[41 
142 

'43 

'43 
[44 

'44 

145 
.46 

147 

,48 

149 

149 

50 

50 

5J 

51 

52 

'53 



CONTENTS 


XV 


Tests of bewitchment . . . . . 


. 153 


Mather publishes an account of this case 


154 


Cotton Mather's book and the Salem troubles 


. 156 


Gloomy outlook in 1692 . 


. 156 


Salem village ...... 


• 157 


Samuel Parris, the pastor .... 


157 


Parish troubles in Salem village 


. 158 


Mr. Parris' s coloured servants 


159 


The " afflicted children " . . . . 


. 159 


Mistress Ann Putnam .... 


160 


Beginnings of the troubles . . . . 


. 161 


Physicians and clergymen called in 


162 


The trial of Sarah Good . . . . 


. 162 


The accusation of Martha Corey and Rebecca N 


urse 1 64 


Character of Martha Corey . . . . 


. 164 


Rebecca Nurse ..... 


. 165 


A village feud ...... 


. 165 


The examination of Rebecca Nurse 


166 


Deodat Lawson ...... 


. 167 


The spread of the delusion 


. 167 


Cases of personal malice . . . . 


. 168 


The Rev. George Burroughs 


. 169 


The special court erected . . . . 


. 169 


The advice of the ministers 


170 


Spectral evidence . . . . . 


. 173 


The jury acquit Rebecca Nurse . 


174 


The court sends them back . . . . 


• 175 


The case of Mary Easty .... 


176, 177 


Mary Easty torn from her home at midnight 


. 178 


Doubt perilous ..... 


. 178 


Peine forte et dure . . . . . 


. 179 


The Rev. Mr. Noyes .... 


180 


The petition of Mary Easty . . . . 


. 181 


Her warning ...... 


182 


Sudden collapse of the trials . . . . 


. 183 


Reaction follows the intense strain 


. 184 



XVI 



CONTENTS 



The accusers aim too high 
Accusers threatened with a suit for damages , 
The Court of Oyer and Terminer abolished 
Cotton Mather ..... 

Explanation of Mather's speech 
Judge Sewall's public acknowledgment of wrong 
Ann Putnam's confession 
Were the accusers misled or shamming ? 
Evidences of collusion .... 
Was there a deliberate conspiracy ? 
Contagion of hysterical emotion 
Psychology of hallucinations 
Playing with fire .... 

The evils of publicity in the examinations 
Explanation of Mrs. Putnam's part 
She exercised hypnotic control over the children 
The case of Salem village helps one to realize the 
rors of the witchcraft delusion in the past . 



184 
185 
186 
186 
187 
188 
188 
189 
190 
191 
191 
192 
193 
193 
194 

195 
196 



VI 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 



The reaction from the witchcraft delusion . -197 

Rise of secular opposition to the theocracy . 198, 199 

The Halfway Covenant . . . . .200 

The South Church . . . . . .201 

The opposidon to the theocracy lays the foundation of 
Toryism . . . . . . .201 

The new charter of Massachusetts . . . 202, 203 

The Brattle Church founded 1698 . . . 204 

Relaxation of conditions of membership . . . 204 

Cotton Mather's alarm ..... 205 

The theocracy helpless under the new charter . .206 



CONTENTS 



The new church finally recognized . . .206 

The effort to get a new charter for Harvard . .207 

Governor Bellomont vetoes a test act for college officers 208 
Rise of liberalism in the college .... 208 
President Increase Mather displaced . . . 209 

Cotton Mather's indignation .... 209 
Governor Dudley . . • . . .210 

The new charter for Harvard a substantial reenactment 

ofthatofi65o ...... 210 

Conditions in Connecticut . . . . .211 

New Haven annexed to Connecticut . . . 212 

Comparison of Massachusetts and Connecticut . .212 

Causes of Connecticut conservatism . . . 213 

The tendency in organizations to become rigid and 

mechanical . . . . . . .213 

The instance of the Cambridge Platform, 1 648 . .214 

Lack of a party of opposition in Connecticut . . 215 

The Saybrook Platform . . . . .216 

The platform tends to assimilate Congregationalism to 

Presbyterianism . . . . . .217 

Massachusetts and Connecticut change places . .217 

The founding of Yale College . . . . 218 

The conservative tendencies of Connecticut reinforced 

by the college . . . . . . .219 

State of religion early in the eighteenth century . 220 
Rise of commercial interests . . . . .221 

•♦ Stoddardeanism " . . . . . .222 

Jonathan Edwards . . . . . .222 

Edwards's vein of mysticism . . . . 223 

His emphasis on conversion ..... 224 

Revivals . . . . . . .225 

The Revival of 1734 ...... 226 

George Whitefield invited to New England . . 226 

Gilbert Tennent . . . . . .227 

James Davenport . . . . . .227 

Comparison with the Antinomians . • . . .228 



XVI 11 CONTENTS 

Whitefield's return to New England . . . 229 

Davenport arrested for public disturbance . . .230 

Last days of Edwards . . . . .231 

Results of the Awakening . . . . -232 



VII 

NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 

The "irrepressible conflict" between France and Eng- 
land in America ...... 233 

Acadia finally passes to England . . . .234 

The French view of the limits of Acadia . . '234 

The Abenaki tribes . . , . . .235 

Sebastian Rale . . . . . . -236 

The Norridgewock village . . . .236 

The country between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec 237 
The Indian view of selling land . . . -238 

The Indians and the French . . . . 239 

Conference between Governor Shute and the Indians 239 
Baxter and Rale . . . . . . 239, 240 

The Indians instigated to attack the English , . 241 

Border warfare ...... 

Conflicts between the Governor and the Assembly 
Shute succeeded by Dummer 
Expeditions against the Indians . 
Extermination of the Norridgewock tribe . 
Captain Lovewell ..... 

Lovewell's fight ..... 

The death of Frye ..... 247 

Louisburg ....... 

The project to capture Louisburg 

The New England colonies undertake the attack 

The naval force ..... 

The French surprised* ..... 



241 
242 

243 
243 
244 
245 

245 
248 
249 
250 
251 
252 
253 



CONTENTS xix 

The Grand Battery abandoned in panic . . 254 

Capture of a French hne-of-battle ship . . '255 

Louisburg surrendered June 17, 1745 . . .256 

A relic of Louisburg . . . . . .256 



VIII 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle . . . .258 

The spread of the English westward • . . 259 

The Scotch-Irish . . . . . -259 

The pioneers pass the Alleghanies . . . 260 

This advance of the English a menace to the French 261 
The French influence with the Indians declines . 261 

The founding of Oswego . . . . . 262 

Sir William Johnson . ..... 263 

English traders in the Ohio valley . . . 264 

Celoron takes possession of the Ohio valley for Louis XV., 

1749 265 

Celoron among the Miamis .... 266 

The Miamis under English influence . . . 267 

The French destroy the Miami trading village . 267 

The Marquis Duquesne . . . . .268 

The French expedition of 1753. . . . 268 

The Indians between two fires . . . .269 

A chance meeting ...... 270 

Major George Washington sent to warn the French . 270 
The French boast of their plans . . . . 271 

Governor Dinwiddle resolves to occupy the Gateway 
of the West . . . . . .272 

Duquesne anticipates the English . . . .272 

The Virginia expedition to Fort Duquesne . . 273 

Washington surprises a French force . . -274 

Fort Necessity . . . . . .275 



XX 



CONTENTS 



The battle of Fort Necessity ..... 

The English retreat ...... 

NiggardUness of the Provincial Assemblies 

The defence of the colonies dependent on the governors 

The need of a union of the colonies 

The Albany Congress ..... 

Franklin's plan of union rejected .... 

England and France send troops to America, 1755 
Capture of two French ships ..... 

General Braddock .... 

Indian mode of fighting 

English regulars ill prepared for such tactics 

Braddock's difficulties .... 

Braddock should have landed at Philadelphia 
The march ..... 

A detachment sent on in advance 
Beaujeu sets out to waylay the English 
Braddock's precautions 

The battle 

The English fall before unseen foes 

Bravery of Braddock and Washington 

Braddock's death .... 

Dunbar's culpable retreat . . ." . 292, 



275 
276 
277 
278 
279 
280 
280 
281 
282 
283 
283 
284 
285 
286 
287 
288 
289 
289 
290 
291 
291 
292 
293 



IX 



CROWN POINT, FORT WILLIAM HENRY, AND TICONDEROGA 



Governor Shirley's plan of campaign 
William Johnson to attack Crown Point 
Character of Johnson's army . 
Johnson names Lake George 
Dieskau's approach 

The Indians prefer to attack the camp . 
The English scouting party routed . 



294 
295 
296 
297 
297 
298 
299 



CONTENTS 



XXI 



Dieskau repulsed and captured 

Shirley's expedition against Niagara a failure , 

Desolation on the frontier 

Opening of the Seven Years' War 

England and Prussia join forces 

Montcalm ..... 

Montcalm's account of the voyage to Canada 
Vaudreuil not gratified by Montcalm's arrival 
Shirley superseded .... 

The Earl of Loudoun .... 

Loudoun plans to attack Ticonderoga 

Fall of Oswego ...... 

Montcalm's capture of Oswego impresses the Indians 
Loudoun's expedition against Louisburg 
Montcalm's expedition against Fort William Henry 
Ferocity of Montcalm's Indian allies 
The English force at Fort William Henry and Fort Ed- 
ward ...... 

Montcalm invests Fort William Henry . 
Surrender of the forces at Fort William Henry 
The Indians uncontrollable 
The massacre of prisoners 

William Pitt 

Pitt's hold on popular confidence 

Pitt recalls Loudoun ... 

Lord Howe ..... 

The expedition against Ticonderoga 

Lord Howe's adaptability 

The English scouting party lost in the woods 

Death of Lord Howe .... 

Montcalm's defences . . . . 

Alternatives open to Abercrombie 

Montcalm saved by Abercrombie' s stupidity . 322, 

An assault ordered .... 

All assaults repulsed .... 

Abercrombie ridiculed .... 



299 

300 
301 
302 
302 
303 
304 
305 
306 

iOJ 
307 
308 

309 
310 
310 
311 

312 
313 
3H 
3H 
315 
315 
316 

317 
317 
318 

319 

319 
320 

321 

322 

323 
324 
324 
325 



xxu CONTENTS 

X 

LOUISBURG, FORT DUQUESNE, AND THE FALL OF QUEBEC 

Strategic points in the contest . . . 326, 327 

Louisburg . . . . . . .328 

The English expedition against Louisburg . '329 

General Wolfe effects a landing . . . . 330 

The harbour batteries secured or reduced by the English 331 
Gradual destruction of the French fleet . . • 331 

Surrender of Louisburg . . . . .332 

Wolfe returns to England . . . . -333 

Bradstreet's expedition against Fort Frontenac . 334 

Fort Frontenac taken, August 27 . . . -334 

The loss of Fort Frontenac weakens Fort Duquesne 335 

General John Forbes . . . , .336 

The expedition against Fort Duquesne . . -336 

The choice of routes . . . . -337 

Forbes' s method of advance . . . . -337 

The slow progress of the march favourable to success 338 
Major Grant's disastrous reconnoissance . . 339, 340 

Christian Frederic Post wins over the Indians . 341 

The French evacuate Fort Duquesne . . '34' 

Pitt resolved to drive the French from Canada . 342 

Preparations for the campaign of 1759 . . . 343 

Weak points of eighteenth century strategy . . 344 

General Amherst's plan of campaign . . . 344 

General Prideaux's expedition against Fort Niagara 345 

Fall of Fort Niagara ...... 346 

General Amherst marches against Ticonderoga . -347 

Ticonderoga deserted and blown up . . . 348 

Amherst's ineffective activity . . . . -349 

Quebec ........ 349 

The position of the French forces . . . 3^0, 351 

The difficulties which confronted Wolfe . . 352 



CONTENTS xxiii 

His illness . . . . . . '352 

Wolfe plans to scale the heights . . . . 353 

Final preparations . . . . . '3 54 

The start . . . . . . '355 

The ascent . . . . . . -355 

Complete surprise of the French . . , . 356 

The battle . . . . . . -357 

Death of Wolfe 358 

Death of Montcalm ..... 358, 359 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Map showing the British Colonies and Northern 
New France, 1750— 1760 (^coloured') Frontispiece 

Map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence by Champlain, 

1632 54 

From The History of Canada under French Regime. 

Map of North America 236 

From Edward Well's New List of Maps, London, 1 698-1 699. 

Map of Louisburg 254 

From Maute's History of the Late War. 

Map of Lake George 312 

From Maute's History of the Late War, London, 1772. 

Map of the Siege of Quebec ....... 342 

From Mile's History of Canada under French Regime. 



NEW f: 



^r3|c> '^:^ c?-^- * ' Si 






C2 



tl^ 



;^^N©! NEW 



ENGLAND 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 

AMONG the seafaring people of Europe 
there are perhaps none more hardy and 
^ enterprising than the inhabitants of the 
picturesque little towns along the coasts of Nor- 
mandy and Brittany. In race characteristics 
there is a close similarity to their neighbours 
of the opposite British shore. The Welsh of 
Armorica are own brethren of the Welsh of 
Cornwall, and as long ago as the reign of the 
Emperor Julian the regions about the mouth 
of the Seine were commonly known as a Litus 
Saxonicuniy or Saxon shore. There to this day 
you will find the snug enclosed farmsteads so 
characteristic of merry England, while Norman 
the map is thickly dotted with Anglo- ^*'^°''^ 
Saxon names. Thither a thousand years ago 
flocked the Vikings from the fjords of Norway 
and settled down over the north of Gaul as over 
the east of Britain. The geographical position 



2 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

was favourable to the indulgence of inherited 
proclivities, and throughout the Middle Ages 
the French and English shores of the Channel 
were famed for their hardy mariners. Their 
ships thronged side by side in the Icelandic 
waters, in quest of codfish, and even the chase 
of the whale was not unknown to them. When 
at the beginning of the fifteenth century the 
Norman knight Jean de Bethencourt conquered 
and colonized the Canary Islands, for which in 
return for aid and supplies he did homage to 
the king of Castile,^ his company was chiefly 
composed of Bretons and Normans, who have 
left their descendants in those islands to the pre- 
sent day. As early as 1364 we find merchants 
from Dieppe trading on the Grain Coast, be- 
tween Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas ; and by 
1383 these bold adventurers had established 
themselves upon that shore, which they held 
until 1410.^ They were thus in advance of the 
On the coast pionccrs of Henry the Navigator, 
of Africa ^.nd for a moment it might have 
seemed as if the Guinea coast were likely to be- 
come French rather than Portuguese, when the 
civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians 
and th^ invasion of France by Henry V. of 
England put a new face upon the matter, and 
the hold of the French upon Africa was lost. 

1 See my Discovery of America, i. 321. 

2 Shea's Charlevoix, i. 13. 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 3 

A substantial monument of their early activity 
in that quarter is furnished by the fortified town 
of Elmina, upon the Gold Coast, whence in 
these British days runs the direct road to Ku- 
massi. Elmina was founded in the fourteenth 
century by men of Dieppe, and the trade in 
elephants' tusks then inaugurated gave rise to 
the ivory manufactures which still flourish in 
the little Norman seaport.^ 

Under these circumstances it is not strange 
that the voyages of Columbus and the Cabots 
should have met with a quick response from the 
mariners of northern Gaul. Local traditions of 
a patriotic sort have asserted that Normandy 
and Brittany did not wait for the Cabot voy- 
ages to be taught the existence of the New- 
foundland fisheries, but had learned the lesson 
for themselves even before the crossing of the 
Sea of Darkness by Columbus.^ There is no 
reason why fishing voyages to the Newfound- 
land banks might not have been made before 
1492, but on the other hand there is no respect- 
able evidence that any such voyages had been 
made. The strong impression made upon John 

* GafFarel, Etude sur les rapports de P Amerique et de 
P ancien Continent avant Chris top he Colomb, Paris, 1869, p. 
316. 

^ Such claims are to be found in the extremely uncritical 
book of Desmarquets, Memoires chronologiques pour servir a 
rhistoire de Dieppe, Paris, 1785, 



4 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Cabot by the enormous numbers of codfish off 
the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland * in- 
dicates that the western stretches of the ocean 
were by no means familiar to the fishermen of 
the EngHsh Channel. The first authentic record 
Breton ships wc havc of Brcton ships in New- 
on the banks foundknd watcrs is in the year 1504, 
and from that time forward we never lose a year. 
The place once found was too good to be neg- 
lected, and thus a presumption is raised against 
any date earlier than 1504. 

From catching fish in these waters to visiting 
the neighbouring coasts the step was not a long 
one, and presently the name Cape Breton makes 
its appearance, the oldest surviving European 
name upon the Atlantic coast of North Amer- 
ica. It is asserted by Dieppese writers that a 
chart of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was made in 
1506 by Jean Denys of Honfleur, and that two 
years later Thomas Aubert ascended the great 
river for eighty leagues, and brought back to 
Alleged dis- Europe scvcn tawny natives who were 
Gui7of°st. ^ exhibited at Rouen and perhaps else- 
Lawrence where in 1509. We are furthermore 
assured that upon this voyage Aubert was ac- 
companied by a Florentine mariner destined to 
win great renown, Giovanni da Verrazano. The 

1 See his conversation with the Milanese ambassador in 
Harrisse, yokn Cabot, the Discoverer of North America ^ 
and Sebastian his Son, London, 1896, p. 54. 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 5 

authority for these statements is not such as we 
could desire, being found chiefly in uncritical 
documents collected by the uncritical editor 
Desmarquets, who lets slip no opportunity for 
glorifying Dieppe. There is strong collateral 
evidence, however, of a voyage into the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence at about this time. Not only 
does the exhibition of the kidnapped Indians 
rest upon independent evidence, as early as 
1512,^ but in the edition of Ptolemy brought 
out in 151 1 by Sylvanus, there is a map con- 
taining a square-looking gulf to the west of a 
spacious island which is unquestionably in- 
tended for Newfoundland, and the outlines of 
this gulf seem to have originated in actual ex- 
ploration and not in fancy. There is a map 
preserved in the government archives at Ottawa, 
which purports to be a copy of that of Jean 
Denys, and may well be so, for, although the 
names upon it belong to a later period, there is 
some reason for believing that they are a sub- 
sequent addition. If the outlines are those of 
Denys of Honfleur, we have in them a satisfac- 
tory explanation of the strange map of Sylva- 
nus. Moreover, some weight must attach to 
the fact that both the voyages of Denys and of 
Aubert are mentioned under the years 1506 and 
1508 by Ramusio.^ There can be little doubt 

^ Eusebii chronicon,Y2x\'i,, 1512, fol. 172. 

2 Ramusio, NavigatioTii e viaggi,YQnti\z, 1550, iii. 423; 



6 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

that the attention of Frenchmen was, to an 
appreciable extent, drawn toward the New 
World during the reign of Louis XII. 

Under his successor, the gay, gallant, and 
ambitious Francis I., attention was still further 
drawn to these strange shores. The jovial law- 
yer. Marc Lescarbot of Vervins, writing in 
161a, tells us that about the year 1518a certain 
Baron de Lery made an unsuccessful attempt 
at establishing a colony upon Sable Island, and 
left there a stock of cattle and pigs which mul- 
tiplied apace, and proved comforting and tooth- 
some to later adventurers.^ 

The French had sturdy rivals in these Atlan- 
tic waters. That was the golden age of Portu- 
The Portu- gucsc enterprise, and one of the first 
guese voy- rcsults of the Cabot voyages was to 
North stimulate the curiosity of Portugal. 

America "T\\e voyage of Cabral in 1 500 proved 
that the Brazilian coast in great part falls east 
of the papal line of demarcation, and therefore 
belonged to Portugal, and not to Spain. In 
that same year a voyage in the northern waters 
by Caspar Cortereal raised hopes that the same 
might be proved true of Newfoundland, and 

2d ed., Venetia, 1606, iii. 355. Ramusio speaks of Aubert 
as the first who brought Indians to France, " il primo che 
condusse qui le genti del detto paese." 

^ Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1 6 1 2, 
i. 22 ; De L^t, Novus or bis, p. 39. 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 7 

Portuguese vessels sailed often in that direction. 
Their fishing craft were to be seen off the coast, 
in company with Norman, Breton, and Biscayan 
vessels, and sometimes an elaborate attempt at 
exploration was made. Such was the voyage of 
Alvarez Fagundes in 1520. In accordance with 
an old custom the king of Portugal promised 
this mariner a grant of such new lands as he 
might discover upon this expedition. In March, 
1 5 2 1 , after the return of Fagundes and his report 
to the king, the grant was duly issued. From 
the descriptions in the grant, supplemented by 
a map made forty years later by Lazaro Luiz, 
we may draw conclusions, somewhat dubious, 
as to just what was accomplished by Fagundes ; 
but there can be little doubt that he explored 
more or less thoroughly the coasts of the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence.^ 

But the Portuguese were becoming too deeply 
absorbed with their work in the Indian Ocean 
to devote much attention to North America. 
And. in like manner in 15 17-21 the discovery 
of Mexico and the astonishing exploits of 
Cortes quite riveted the minds of their rivals, 
the Spaniards, in that direction. It was just at 

^ The voyage of Fagundes is discussed in Harrisse, The 
Discovery of North America, pp. 180-188; Bettencourt, 
Descobrime?!tos, guerras, e conquista dos Portugueses em ter- 
ras de Ultramar nos seculos xv. e xvi., Lisbon, 1881, i., 
132-135, etc. 



8 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

this moment, and through these circumstances, 
that French interest in America received a fresh 
stimulus. After the capture of the city of Mex- 
ico an immense store of gold and silver was 
shipped for Spain, in charge of Alonso de Avila ; 
but Avila, with his ships and his' treasure, was 
captured by the famous Verrazano 

Verrazano ^ . ' 

and carried off to France, probably to 
Dieppe, where the Florentine navigator seems 
for many years to have had his headquarters. 
In the course of the same cruise Verrazano cap- 
tured another Spanish ship on its way from San 
Domingo, heavily laden with gold and pearls, 
so that he was enabled to make gorgeous pre- 
sents to King Francis and to the Admiral of 
France. The delightful chronicler, Bernal Diaz, 
who tells us these incidents, adds that the whole 
country was amazed at the stupendous wealth 
that was pouring into the treasury of Charles V. 
from the Indies. The first great war between 
Francis I. Charlcs and Francis was raging, and 
demarcation ^^c latter did not need to be told that 
line Mexican money could be used to pay 

the troops that were defeating his army in Lom- 
bardy. He sent a bantering message to Charles, 
asking if it were really true that he and the king 
of Portugal had parcelled out the earth between 
them without leaving anything for him. Had 
Father Adam made those two his only heirs ? 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 9 

If SO, he wished they would show him that 
patriarch's last will and testament/ Until they 
could do so he should feel at liberty to seize 
whatever his good ships might happen to meet 
upon the ocean, and forthwith he concerted with 
Verrazano fresh raids upon the enemy's sinews 
of war. 

The result of these meditations was the great 
voyage of i 524, which first placed upon the map 
the continuous coast-line of the United States, 
from North Carolina to the mouth of the Pe- 
nobscot River. The purpose of this Verrazano's 

voyage was twofold : first, to ascertain P"''p°^« 
if any more countries abounding in precious 
metals, like Mexico, or in pearls, like Venezuela, 
were to be found within or near the longitudes 
traversed by Columbus and Cabot ; secondly, to 
find some oceanic route north of Florida from 
European ports to the Indian Ocean. In other 
words, this voyage of Verrazano was the first one 
which had any reference to a northwest passage. 
Columbus had believed the shores on which he 
landed to be parts of Asia, either continental or 

^ «' Y entonces dize que dixo el rey de Francia, o se lo 
embio a dezir a nuestro gran Emperador, Que como auian 
partido entre el y el rey de Portugal el mundo sin darle parte 
a el ? Que mostrassen el testamento de nuestro padre Adan, 
si les dexo a ellos solamente por herederos," etc. Diaz, His- 
toria verdadera, Madrid, 1632, cap. clxix. 



10 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

insular, and his last voyage was an attempt to 
find the Strait of Malacca at the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama. Subsequent explanations, however, had 
disclosed an unbroken coast-line all the way from 
Florida to Patagonia ; and the recent return in 
1521 of the wornout remnant of Magellan's ex- 
pedition brought convincing evidence that the 
voyage to India by his southerly route was so 
long and difficult as to be practically useless. 
Thus the New World coasts were coming to be 
recognized as a barrier on the route to Asia, and 
an important part of Verrazano's business was to 
discover a northern end to this long barrier, or 
a passageway through it somewhere to the north- 
ward of the regions already examined. 

This is not the best place for giving a detailed 
account of Verrazano's voyage, inasmuch as it 
was confined to portions of the American coast 
over which France has never held sway. I have 
given the principal details of it in treating of the 
Dutch and Quaker Colonies,^ and need not repeat 
them here. Let it suffice to say that besides 
delineating the coast of the United States from 
North Carolina to Maine, Verrazano entered the 
Hudson River and Narragansett Bay, and saw 
from his ship's deck the distant peaks of the 
White Mountains. He found no gold mines 
nor beds of pearl, neither did he anywhere detect 
^ [Z7/t' Dutch and Quaker Colonies, i. 68-78.] 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 11 

what seemed to him a feasible waterway into the 
Indian Ocean, but he did discover in this con- 
nection one of the most extraordinary mare's 
nests on record. He seems to have gone ashore 
upon the Accomac peninsula and tramped across 
it until his eyes rested upon the waters of Ches- 
apeake Bay, which he mistook for the Pacific 
Ocean. For soon after his return to Europe 
two maps were issued, one by his own brother, 
Girolamo Verrazano,one by Vesconte Maggiolo, 
which exerted a great influence upon the geo- 
graphical ideas of the next three generations of 
Europeans. These maps show a solid continen- 
tal mass connecting Florida with Mexico, and 
another solid mass to the northward, such as 
would naturally have been suggested to Verra- 
zano by the presence of such large The Sea of 
rivers as the Hudson and the Penob- verrazano 
scot. But between these masses the whole cen- 
tral region of the United States is represented 
as an immense sea continuous with the Pacific 
Ocean ; while the Virginian coast is shown as a 
very narrow isthmus, with an inscription by Ver- 
razano's brother, informing us that here the 
distance from sea to sea is not more than six 
miles. A full century elapsed before this notion 
of the Sea of Verrazano was eliminated from 
men's minds, and without taking this fact into 
the account it is impossible to understand the 



12 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

movements of navigators who ascended rivers 
like the Hudson and the St, Lawrence in the 
hope of finding passageways into the western 
sea. 

When Verrazano arrived in Dieppe in July, 
152,5, the king, who had been taken prisoner at 
the battle of Pavia in February, was a captive 
at Madrid. His demand for a sight of Father 
Adam's will had met with a rude response. He 
purchased his freedom in January, 1526, by sign- 
ing a disastrous treaty, but no sooner had he 
leaped upon his goodly steed, on the French side 
of the Pyrenees, than he renounced all intention 
of keeping promises thus made under duress. 
The worthy Verrazano fared much worse than 
his royal master,' In the year 1526 he entered 
into an arrangement with Jean Ango and other 
important citizens of Dieppe for a voyage into 
Death of the Indian Ocean for spices, but in the 
Verrazano coursc of the following year he was 
overhauled by Spanish cruisers, who took him 
prisoner and hanged him as a pirate.^ 

There enters now upon the scene a man of 
whose personality we have a much more distinct 
conception than we have of Verrazano. As that 
accomplished Italian is one of the chief glories 
of the town of Dieppe, so the Breton seaport of 

1 Barcia, Ensayo chronologico para la historia general de 
la Florida, 1735, p. 8, since confirmed by documents in the 
archives of Simancas. 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 13 

St. Malo is famous for its native citizen, Jacques 
Cartier. His portrait hangs in the town hall. 
Unfortunately its authenticity is not jacques 
above question, but if it is not surely ^^"""^ 
a true likeness it deserves to be ; it well ex- 
presses the earnestness and courage, the refine- 
ment and keen intelligence of the great Breton 
mariner.^ He had roamed the seas for many 
years, and had won — and doubtless earned — 
from Spanish mouths the epithets of " corsair " 
and " pirate," when at the age of three and forty 
he was selected by Philippe de Chabot, Admiral 
of France, to carry on the work of Denys and 
Aubert and Verrazano, and to bring fresh tid- 
ings of the mysterious Square Gulf of Sylvanus. 
On April 20, 1534, Cartier sailed from St. 
Malo with two small craft carrying sixty-one 
men, and made straight for the coast of Labra- 
dor, just north of the Straits of Belle Isle, a re- 
gion already quite familiar to Breton and Nor- 
man fishermen. Passing through the straits he 
skirted the inner coast of Newfoundland south- 
ward as far as Cape Ray, whence he crossed to 
Prince Edward Island, and turned his prows to 
the north. The oppressive heat of an American 
July is commemorated in the name which Car- 
tier gave to the Bay of Chaleur. A little further 
on, at Gaspe, he set up a cross, and with the 

^ The best and most critical biography is Longrais, Jacques 
Cartier, Paris, 1888. 



14 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

usual ceremonies took possession of the country 
in the name of Francis I. Thence he crossed to 
the eastern end of Anticosti, and followed the 
north shore of that island nearly to its western 
point, when he headed about, and passing 
through Belle Isle made straight for France, 
carrying with him a couple of Indians whom he 
had kidnapped, young warriors from far up the 
St. Lawrence, who had come down to the sea to 
catch mackerel in hemp nets. 

With this voyage of reconnoissance the shad- 
owy Square Gulf of Sylvanus at once becomes 
The expiora- clothcd with reality. Enough interest 
sTilw-^ was aroused in France to seem to jus- 
rence tify another Undertaking, and in May, 

1535, the gallant- Cartier set forth once more, 
with three small ships and iio men. Late in 
July he passed through the Strait of Belle Isle, 
and on the loth of August, a day sacred to the 
martyred St. Lawrence, he gave that name to a 
small bay on the mainland north of Anticosti. 
Whales were spouting all around his course as 
he passed the western point of the island and 
ploughed into the broad expanse of salt water 
that seemed to open before him the prospect of 
a short passage to the Indian Ocean. Day' by 
day, however, the water grew fresher, and by the 
September morning when he reached the mouth 
of the Saguenay our explorer was reluctantly 
convinced that he was not in a strait of the ocean, 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 15 

but in one of the mightiest rivers of the earth. 
To these newcomers from the Old World each 
day must have presented an impressive specta- 
cle ; for except the Amazon and the Orinoco it 
may be doubted if there be any river which gives 
one such an overwhelming sense of power and 
majesty as the St. Lawrence ; certainly the Mis- 
sissippi seems very tame in comparison. 

As the Frenchmen inquired the names of the 
villages along the banks, a reply which they com- 
monly received from their two Indian The name 
guides was the word Canada, -wKich. is "Canada" 
simply a Mohawk word for " village." ^ Hence 
Cartier naturally got the impression that Canada 
was the name of the river or of the country 
through which it flowed, and from these begin- 
nings its meaning has been gradually expanded 
until it has come to cover half of a huge conti- 
nent. Presently on arriving at the site of Que- 
bec, Cartier found there a village named Stada- 
cona, with a chieftain called Donnacona. Painted 
and bedizened warriors and squaws came troop- 
ing to the water's edge or paddling out in canoes 
to meet the astounding spectacle of the white- 
winged floating castles and their pale-faced and 
bearded people. In the two kidnapped inter- 
preters the men of Stadacona quickly recognized 
their kinsmen ; strings of beads were passed 
about, dusky figures leaped and danced, and 

^ Beauchamp, Indian Names in New York, p. 104. 



16 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

doleful yells of welcome resounded through the 
forest. Was this the principal town of that coun- 
try ? No, it was not. The town in question was 
many miles up-stream, a great town, and its name 
,^ , , was Hochelaga, but it would be rash 

Hochelaga j i ■ • 

tor the bearded visitors to attempt to 
go thither, for they would be blinded with falling 
snow, and their ships would be caught between 
ice-floes. This ironical solicitude for the safety 
of the strangers has the genuine Indian smack. 
The real motive underlying it was doubtless 
" protection to home industry ; " why should 
the people at Hochelaga get a part of the beads 
and red ribbons when there were no more than 
enough for the people at Stadacona ^ Recourse 
was had to the supernal or infernal powers. On 
a fine autumn morning a canoe came down the 
river, carrying three scowling devils clad in dog- 
skins, with inky-black faces surmounted by long 
antlers. As they passed the ships they paddled 
shorewards, prophesying in a dismal monotone, 
until as the canoe touched the beach all three 
fell flat upon their faces. Thereupon forth issued 
from the woods Donnacona's feathered braves, 
An Indian ^nd in an ecstasy of yelps and groans 
^^'^^ seized the fallen demons and carried 

them out of sight behind the canopy of leaves, 
whence for an hour or so their harsh and gut- 
tural hubbub fell upon the ears of the French- 
men. At last the two young interpreters crawled 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 17 

out from the thicket and danced about the shore 
with agonized cries and gestures of Hvely terror, 
until Cartier from his quarter-deck called out to 
know what was the trouble. It was a message, 
they said, from the mighty deity Coudouagny, 
warning the visitors not to venture upon the 
dangerous journey to Hochelaga, inasmuch as 
black ruin would surely overtake them. The 
Frenchman's reply was couched in language dis- 
respectful to Coudouagny, and the principle of 
free-trade in trinkets prevailed. 

With a forty-ton pinnace and two boats car- 
rying fifty men Cartier kept on up the river, 
leaving his ships well guarded in a snug harbour 
within the mouth of the stream now known as 
the St. Charles. A cheerful voyage of a fortnight 
brought the little party to Hochelaga, Cartier 
where they landed on a crisp October a^'^es at 

T-U r A ^ ^ Hochelaga 

mornmg. 1 here came torth to meet 
them — in the magniloquent phrase of the old 
narrator — " one of the principal lords of the 
said city," ^ with a large company of retainers, 
for thus did their European eyes interpret the 
group of clansmen by whom they were wel- 
comed. A huge bonfire was soon blazing and 
crackling, and Indian tongues, loosened by its 
genial warmth, poured forth floods of eloquence, 

^ " L'un des principaulx seigneurs de la dicte ville." 
Cartier, Brief recit de la nauigationf aide esysks de Canaduy 
etc., p. 23. 



18 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

until presently the whole company took up its 
march into the great city of Hochelaga. A sketch 
of this rustic stronghold was published in 1556 
in Ramusio's collection of voyages. The name 
of the draughtsman has not come down to us, 
but it was apparently drawn from memory by 
some one of Cartier's party, for while it does not 
answer in all details to Cartier's description, it 
is a most characteristic and unmistakable Iro- 
Hocheiagaa ^uois town. It was circular in shape, 
typical iro- Xhc Central portion consisted of about 

quois town r r l • i r • 

iirty long wigwams, about 1 50 feet m 
length by 50 in breadth, framed of saplings 
tightly boarded in with sheets of bark. Through 
the middle of each wigwam ran a passageway, 
with stone fireplaces at intervals coming under 
openings in the high bark roof whereby some of 
the smoke might escape. Kettles of baked clay 
hung over most of the fires, and the smoky at- 
mosphere was redolent of simmering messes of 
corn and beans and fowl, or, if it were a gala day, 
of boiled dog, while the fumes of tobacco were 
omnipresent. On either side were the rows of 
shelves or benches covered with furs, which 
served as beds ; while here and there, overlook- 
ing sheaves of stone arrows and scattered toma- 
hawks, there dangled flint knives and red clay 
pipes and dried human scalps. These spacious 
wigwams were arranged about a large central 
square, and outside of them a considerable inter- 



FROM CARTIER TO CIIAMPLAIN 19 

val or boulevard intervened between habitations 
and wall. Such a town might have held a pop- 
ulation of from 2500 to 3000 souls, but the ac- 
tual number was apt to fall short of the capacity. 
The town wall was ingeniously constructed of 
three concentric rows of stout saplings. The 
middle row stood erect in the ground, rising to 
a height of twelve or fifteen feet ; and the two 
outer rows, planted at a distance of five or six 
feet on either side of it, were inclined so as to 
make a two-sided tent-shaped structure. The 
three rows of saplings met at the top, and were 
tightly lashed to a horizontal ridge-pole, while 
at the bottom, and again about halfway up, they 
were connected by diagonal cross-braces, after 
the herring-bone pattern, thus securing great 
strength and stability. Around the inside of this 
stout wall, and near the top, ran a gallery acces- 
sible by short ladders, and upon the gallery our 
explorers observed piles of stones ready to be 
hurled at an approaching foe. Outside in all di- 
rections stretched rugged half-cleared fields clad 
in the brown remnant of last summer's corn 
crop, and dotted here and there with yellow 
pumpkins. 

The arrival of the white strangers was the 
cause of wild excitement among the bark cabins 
and in the open square of Hochelaga. Their 
demeanour was so courteous and friendly that 
men, women, and children allowed curiosity 



20 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

to prevail over fear ; they flocked about the 
Frenchmen and felt of their steel weapons and 
stroked their beards. Sick Indians came up to 
be touched and cured, trinkets were handed 
The name about, politc spccchcs Were made, and 
Montreal ^^ length amid a loud fanfare of trum- 
pets the white men took their leave. Before 
they embarked the Indians escorted them to 
the summit of the neighbouring hill, which 
Cartier named Mont Royal, a name which as 
Montreal still remains attached to the hill and 
to the noble city at its foot. 

It was getting late in the season to make 
further explorations in this wild and unknown 
country, and upon returning to Stadacona the 
Frenchmen went into winter quarters. There 
they suffered from such intensity of cold as the 
shores of the English Channel never witnessed. 
Distresses of ^nd presently scurvy broke out with 
the winter such virulcncc that scarcely a dozen 
of the whole company were left well enough 
to take care of the rest. In vain were prayers 
and litanies and genuflexions in the snow. The 
heavenly powers were as obdurate as when Cas- 
sim Baba forgot the talismanic word that opened 
the robbers' cave. But presently Cartier learned 
from an Indian that a decoction of the leaves 
of a certain evergreen tree was an infallible cure 
for scurvy. The experiment was tried with re- 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 21 

suits that would have gladdened Bishop Berke- 
ley, had he known them, when he wrote his 
famous treatise on the virtues of tar water.^ 
Whether the tree was spruce, or pine, or bal- 
sam fir, is matter of doubt, but we are told that 
Cartier's men showed such avidity that within 
a week they had boiled all the foliage of a tree 
as big as a full-grown oak, and had quaffed the 
aromatic decoction, whereupon their cruel dis- 
temper was quickly healed. 

The ranks had been so thinned by death 
that Cartier was obliged to leave one of his 
ships behind. Further exploration must be 
postponed. It was the common experience. 
A single season of struggle with the savage con- 
tinent made it necessary to return to Europe 
for fresh resources. So it was with Cartier. 
The midsummer of 1536 saw him once more 
safe within the walls of St. Malo, and confident 
that one more expedition would reveal some at 
least of the wonders which he had heard of, 
comprising all sorts of things from gold and 
diamonds to unipeds. As we are confronted 
again and again with these resplendent dreams 
of the early voyagers to America, we are re- 

^ On its specific use in scurvy, see Berkeley's Sir is, pp. 
86-1 19, in Eraser's edition of his works, Oxford, 1871, ii. 
395—408. The bishop's interest in tar water seems to have 
been started by his experiences in America, iv. 262. 



22 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

minded not only that the wish is father to the 

thought, but also that the stolid-looking red 

man is the most facetious of mortals, and in his 

opinion the most delightful kind of 

Indian tales ^ . . ° . . , 

tacetiousness, the genume epicure s 
brand of humour, consists in what English slang 
calls " stuffing," or filling a victim's head with 
all manner of false information. In Cartier's 
case one effect was to lead him to kidnap Don- 
nacona and several other chiefs, and carry them 
to France, that they might tell their brave sto- 
ries before the king. 

Five years elapsed before another expedition 
was ready for Canada. King Francis made up 
his mind that a little more flourish of trumpets, 
such as the crowns of Spain and Portugal in- 
dulged in, would not come amiss. Columbus 
and Gama had been admirals and viceroys ; it 
was high time for the king of France to create 
a viceroyalty in the New World. To fill this 
eminent position he selected Jean Francois, 
Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman who held large 
estates in Picardy. This man he created Lord 
of Norumbega and Viceroy over Canada, 
Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, and so 
on through a long string of barbaric names. At 

the same time Cartier was made cap- 

Roberval . , .... . . 

tam-general, and m his commission 
the king declares that the lands of Canada and 
Hochelaga "form the extremity of Asia toward 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 23 

the west." ^ The flourish of trumpets was loud 
enough to reach the ears of Charles V., but the 
Spaniards had become convinced that the cod- 
fish coasts contained no such springs of sud- 
den wealth as Cortes and Pizarro had dis- 
covered for them, and the Spanish ambassador 
at Paris advised his master that the soundest 
policy was to let Francis go on unmolested and 
waste his money in a bootless enterprise. 

The event seemed to justify this cynicism. 
It was a dismal tale of misdirected energies. So 
little commercial interest was felt in the voyage 
that volunteers were not forthcoming and had 
to be sought in the jails. So much time was 
consumed in getting ready that it was decided 
to send on a part of the expedition canier'svoy- 
in advance, and so in May, 1541, Car- ^e^' ^54^ 
tier started with three ships, expecting soon to 
be overtaken by Roberval. In this expecta- 
tion he tarried six weeks on the Newfoundland 
coast, until the arrival of August determined 
him to wait no longer, and he pushed across 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and up the river. Of 
this voyage we have no such full report as of 
its predecessor. Very little seems to have been 
accomplished in new explorations ; at Hoche- 
laga there were rumours of hostile plots on the 
part of the red men ; and then there was another 

1 Harrisse, Notes sur la Nouvelle France, ♦' De par le 
roy," 17 Oct. 1540. 



24 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

wretched winter near the site of Quebec ; and 
then a forlorn retreat to the ocean and to 
France. At one of the harbours on the New- 
foundland coast the little fleet of Cartier met 
that of Roberval, whose detention of a whole 
year has never been accounted for. Our author- 
ities are here so confused that it is impossible 
to elicit from them a coherent story. It seems 
clear, however, that the meeting between the 
two commanders was not a pleasant one, and 
that Cartier kept on his way to France, leaving 
Roberval to shift for himself. 

The Lord of Norumbega was not left help- 
less, however, by this departure. He had sturdy 
pilots on board, already familiar with these 
coasts, and one of his three ships was com- 
manded by a veteran navigator who was thought 
TeanAUe- ^^ ^c unexcclled by any other seaman 
fonsce tries of Francc. This was Jean Allefonsce, 

to explore . r c • ^ 

the Sea of ot thc provmce or bamtonge, over 
verrazano ^vhich swccp the Salt brcezcs of the 
Bay of Biscay. In forty years or more of life 
upon the ocean he is likely to have visited more 
than once already these northern waters, such a 
haunt of Biscayan fishermen. He was now en- 
trusted with an important enterprise. In the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence the expedition was divided, 
and it seems clear that while Roberval under- 
took the task of exploring the river he sent 
Allefonsce on an ocean trip to find a passage 



FROM CARTIERJO CHAMPLAIN 25 

into the Sea of Verrazano. This voyage is 
usually mentioned in such terms as to be unin- 
telligible ; as for example by the Recollet friar, 
Sixte le Tac, writing in 1689, who says that 
Roberval sent Allefonsce northward to Labra- 
dor in quest of a passage to the East Indies, 
but that Allefonsce was so beset with floating 
ice that he was fain to rest contented with dis- 
covering the strait between Newfoundland and 
the continent in latitude 52°,^ or, in other words, 
the Strait of Belle Isle. Now this is of course 
absurd, for the Strait of Belle Isle had long been 
familiar to mariners and was a favourite route 
for entering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In one 
of the most recent books, the late Justin Win- 
sor's " Cartier to Frontenac," we get a reverber- 
ation of this statement when we are told that 
" Allefonsce went north along the Labrador coast 
to find, if possible, a passage to the west. The 
ice proved so dense that he gave up the search."^ 
But while most writers have repeated this state- 

^ " Ce fut lui [Roberval] aussy qui envoya Alphonse tres 
habile pilote xaintongeois vers la Brador pour essayer de trouver 
un passage aux Indes Orientales, mais il se contenta de decouvrir 
seulement celuy qui est entre I' isle Terreneuve et la grande 
Terre du Nord par les 52 degres, les glaces I'empeschant 
d'aller plus loing." Sixte le Tac, Histoire chronologique de la 
Nouvelle France, publi'ee pour la premiere fois d' apres le 
manuscrit original de i68g, par E. R'eveillaud, Paris, 1888, 
p. 45. 

* Cartier to Frontenac, p. 41. 



26 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

ment, it is to be observed that the careful and 
thoroughly informed Hakluyt, writing in 1589, 
Errors in re- Icnows nothing of any such northern 
vo;lge°;f' voyage of Allefonsce. The truth 
AUefonsce is, that eminent sailor, after return- 
ing from his expedition with Roberval, wrote 
an account of his voyages, in which he was 
aided by a friend, Paulin de Secalart, a geogra- 
pher of Honfleur. This narrative, written in 
1545, still remains in manuscript, a folio of 194 
leaves, and is preserved in the National Library 
at Paris.^ But in 1559, shortly after the death 
of Allefonsce, and during that brief period of 
quickened curiosity about the man which is 
wont to conje at such a time, a book was pub- 
lished at Poitiers, entitled "The Adventurous 
Voyages of Captain Jean Allefonsce," and this 
book ran through at least seven editions. It 
was compiled by a merchant of Honfleur 
named Maugis Vumenot, and is a thoroughly 
uncritical and untrustworthy narrative.^ It omits 
much that Allefonsce tells, and weaves in such 
interesting material as Master Vumenot hap- 

^ Its description is Cosmographie avec espere et regime du 
Soldi et du Nord ennostre langue fran^oyse par Jehan Alle- 
fojisce, Bibliotheque Nationale, MSS. fran^ais 676. An 
account of it is given in Harrisse, D'ecouverte de Terre-Neuve, 
p. 153, and Notes sur la Nouvelle France, p. 7. See also De 
Costa, Northmen in Maine, etc., pp. 92-122. 

"^ Cf. Weise, The Discoveries of America, New York, 
1884, p. 352. 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 27 

pened to have at hand, without much regard to 
its historic verity. Such were the na'ive methods 
of sixteenth century writers. 

If we consider what Allefonsce himself tells 
us, although his allusions to places are often far 
from clear, we cannot fail to see that his voyage 
in quest of a western passage in the summer of 
1 542 was directed not northward but The true di- 
southward from the Gulf of St. Law- '■"T"^ 

Alleronsce s 

rence. He seems to have entered voyage 
Massachusetts Bay, and may have passed 
through Long Island Sound and Hell Gate ; 
at all events he has much to say about the town 
of Norumbega, which Mercator's map of 1569 
places upon Manhattan Island ; and he tells us 
that the river of Norumbega is salt for more 
than ninety miles from its mouth, which is true 
of the Hudson, but not of any other river which 
men have sought to associate with Norumbega. 
Moreover our good pilot feels confident that 
this great river, if followed far enough to the 
northward, would be found to unite with the 
other great river of Hochelaga, that is, the St. 
Lawrence.^ This notion, of a union between 
the Hudson and the St. Lawrence,' became a 
very common one, and found expression upon 
the famous map of Gastaldi in 1553, and upon 
other maps. 

1 Cf. Weise, The Discoveries of America, New York, 
1884, p. 352. 



28 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

If we were to allow a little free play to our 
fancy, it would not be difficult to assign a suit- 
able explanation for this voyage of Allefonsce 
in connection with the expedition of Roberval. 
There is no longer any doubt that the Hudson 
River was first made known to Europeans by 
Verrazano in 1524, and was called by various 
names, of which perhaps the Grand River was 
the most common. At the Indian village on 
Manhattan Island French skippers traded for 
furs, and in 1540 a French blockhouse was 
built near the site of Albany for the purpose of 
protecting such traffic with the red 

Allefonsce ^ " 

visits the men of the Mohawk valley. The 
name Norumbega unquestionably first 
appears with Verrazano's voyage, and for forty 
years thereafter it was closely associated with the 
neighbourhood of the Hudson. In reading the 
string of Roberval's titles — which begin with 
Norumbega and run through Canada, Hoche- 
laga, Saguenay, etc., down to Newfoundland 
— it is clear that the king meant to concentrate 
under his rule the various regions which Ver- 
razano and Cartier had discovered. When the 
expedition arrives on the American coast it 
seems not unnatural that the viceroy should 
send his lieutenant to Norumbega while he 
himself should prosecute the journey to Hoche- 
laga. Possibly, as some believed, the watery 
channels pursued by the two might unite. At 



FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 29 

all events a passage into the Sea of Verrazano 
was more likely to be found at the fortieth par- 
allel than at the fifty-second. 

It is a pity that these amiable old skippers, 
in telling of their acts and purposes, should 
have paid so little heed to posterity's craving 
for full and exact knowledge. Just how far the 
good Allefonsce ever got with his Norumbega 
voyage, or what turned him back, we are not 
informed. We may safely say that he did not 
succeed in sailing into the Sea of Verrazano, and 
the next summer we find him once more with 
Roberval on the St. Lawrence. Thither that 
captain had proceeded at the outset after part- 
ing company with Allefonsce. Of his fortunes 
during the next seventeen months our accounts 
are but fragmentary. Hakluyt is unusually brief 
and vague, and we have to rely largely upon a 
manuscript of 1556,^ written by the somewhat 
mendacious Andre Thevet, who seems to have 
been an intimate friend of Roberval and a boon 
companion of the irrepressible buffoon Rabelais. 
Provokingly scanty as Thevet often is, there are 
times when he goes into full details, and one of 
his romantic stories is worthy of mention, since 
it probably rests upon a basis of fact. 

The expedition of Roberval was intended 
not only for exploring the wilderness but for 
founding a colony. Homes were to be estab- 
^ See Harrisse, Notes sur la Nouvelk France, p. 278. 



30 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

lished in the New World, and many of the 
company brought along with them their wives 
and children. Among the young women was 
Marguerite Roberval, niece of the Lord of 
Norumbega, and on the same ship was a gal- 
lant chevalier, and the twain loved one another 
_, , not wisely but too well. Roberval 

1 he charac- ■' 

ter of Rober- was a man of stern and relentless dis- 
position, and forgiveness of sins 
formed no part of his creed. He set his niece 
ashore on a small barren island, with an old 
Norman nurse who had been in her confidence, 
and left them there with a small supply of food 
and guns for shooting game or noxious beasts. 
As the ship sailed away, the lover leaped into 
the sea and by dint of frenzied exertion swam 
ashore. The place was dreaded by sailors, who 
called it the Isle of Demons, but bears and 
wolves were more formidable enemies. On that 
island was born, during the year 1 542, the first 
child of European parents within the vast region 
now known as British America, but one after 
another, child, father, and nurse, succumbed 
to the hardships of the place and died, leaving 
the young mother alone in the wilderness. 
There for more than two years she contrived 
to sustain life, on three occasions shooting a 
white bear, and at all times keeping the de- 
mons aloof by the sign of the cross, until one 
day she was picked up by a fishing vessel and 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 31 

carried back to France. There Thevet tells us 
that he met her a Httle later, in a village of Peri- 
gord, and heard the story from her _, 

<-' • All • romance 

own lips. At all events it was much ofRobervai's 
talked of in France, and forms the ™^" 
subject of the sixty-seventh tale in the famous 
collection of Queen Margaret of Angouleme, 
sister of Francis I.^ The Isle of Demons was 
often called by sailors the Isle of the Damsel. 

Ascending the great river to Cap Rouge, 
near the site of Quebec, where Cartier had win- 
tered, Roberval made it his headquarters. Lit- 
tle is known as to the course of events, save 
that in the following summer Allefonsce had re- 
turned, and a trip was made up the Saguenay. 
There were severe hardships and many died. 
The sternness of Roberval is conspicuous in 
the narrative, and may have been called forth 
by apparent necessity. There were occasions on 
which both men and women were shot for an 
example, and the whipping-post was frequently 
in requisition, " by which means," observes the 
worthy Thevet, " they lived in peace." This is 
about all we know of the mighty viceroyalty of 
Hochelaga, etc. Lescarbot tells us that in the 
course of 1 543 the king sent out Cartier once 

* See Heptameron : Les Nouvelles de Marguemte, Reine 
de Navarre, Berne, 1781, torn. iii. pp. 179-184. In my 
copy of this edition de luxe the superb engraving by Freu- 
denberg represents the lovers seated under palm-trees ! 



32 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

more, who brought home to France the wretched 
survivors of the company.^ About this time 
Cartier received from the king a grant of a 
manor on the coast of the Channel, not far from 
St. Malo, and there we lose sight of the navi- 
gator, except for the mention of his death at 
that place in 1557. Allefonsce seems to have 
been killed in a sea fight about ten years before, 
and we are told that Roberval was assassinated 
one evening on the street in Paris. 

After the failure of this expedition there was 
a partial cessation of French enterprise upon 
the high seas. The reign of Henry II. was 
clouded by the disastrous wars with Spain, in 
which France lost the three bishoprics of Metz, 
Toul, and Verdun, and French armies were so 
woefully defeated at St. Quentin and Gravelines. 
, The death of the king in ic<9 was 

Suspension of , -ri/^- 

French ex- the Signal tor the rise or the Cjuises 
pioration ^^^ ^^^ pursuancc of a policy which 
brought on one of the most disastrous civil 
wars of modern times. From 1562 to 1598 
some historians enumerate eight successive wars 
in France, but it is better to call it one great 
civil war of thirty-six years, with occasional 
truces. It is still more instructive to regard it 
all as a phase of the still mightier conflict which 
was at tfie same time raging between Spain and 
the Netherlands, and which presently included 
1 Lescarbot, ii. 416. 



FROM C ARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 33 

Queen Elizabeth's England among the com- 
batants. It was not a favourable time for ex- 
pending superfluous energy in founding new 
states beyond sea. During the latter half 
of the century we witness two feeble and ill- 
starred attempts at planting Huguenot colonies 
in America, — the attempt of Villegagnon in 
Brazil in 1 557-58, and that of Ribaut in Florida 
in i^Gi-Gc^. The latter of these was Ribaut in 
formidable in purpose ; it represented f^°"da 
the master thought of Coligny which led Sir 
Walter Raleigh to plan the founding of an 
English nation in America. The violent de- 
struction of this Huguenot colony was the 
last notable exhibition of Spanish power beyond 
sea in that century of Spanish preeminence. 
Spanish energy, too, was getting absorbed in 
the conflict of Titans in Europe. 

The aflfair of Florida was essentially military 
in purpose and execution. Attempts at planting 
commercial colonies on the St. Lawrence must 
wait for some more favourable opportunity. 
Yet French fishing vessels steadily plied to and 
fro across the Atlantic. Investigations in the 
local account-books of such towns as importance 
Dieppe and Honfleur lead to the con- IScof 
elusion that as many as 200 ships were ^^ ^^a 
equipped each year in French ports fof fishing 
in American waters.^ It was no uncommon 
^ Winsor, Cartier to Frontctuu, p. 74. 



34 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

thing for these craft to bring home furs and 
walrus ivory. But we hear of little in the way 
of exploration. Dieppe, indeed, boasted some- 
thing like a school of seamanship. It was a city 
to which astronomers, geographers, and map- 
makers were drawn in order to profit by the 
experiences of practical navigators, and where 
questions connected with oceanic exploration 
were likely to be treated in a scientific spirit. 
In those days such men as Pierre Desceliers, 
who has been called the creator of French hy- 
drography, and whose beautiful maps are now 
of great historical importance, made his head- 
quarters at Dieppe. It was a time of keen in- 
tellectual curiosity and bold commercial activity ; 
and nothing was needed but relief from the 
oppressive anarchy that had ruled so long to see 
France putting forth new efforts to plant colo- 
nies and to prepare for maritime empire. The 
end of the century saw a new state of things, 
the military strength of Spain irretrievably 
broken, the policy of France in the hands of 
the greatest and wisest ruler that France ever 
had, with England and the Netherlands loom- 
ing up as powerful competitors in the world be- 
yond seas. Before the rivals lay the American 
coasts,* inviting experiments in the work of 
transplanting civilization. It remained to be 
seen how France would fare in this arduous 
undertaking. 



II 

THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 

THE year 1598 was a memorable one in 
the history of France, for it witnessed 
the death of that insatiable schemer, 
Philip II. of Spain, supporter of the Guises, and 
it also saw the end of the long wars of religion 
and the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes. 
The time seemed to be more propitious than 
before for commercial enterprises, and the 
thoughts of a few bold spirits turned once more 
to the St. Lawrence. One of these was the 
Marquis de la Roche, a Breton noble- voyage of 
man, who obtained from Henry IV. the Marquis 

. , , de la Roche 

a commission very similar to that 
under which Roberval had sailed. But so little 
popular interest was felt in the enterprise that 
volunteers would not come forward, and it be- 
came necessary to gather recruits from the jails. 
The usual scenes of forlorn and squalid tragedy 
followed. Roche was cast ashore on the Breton 
coast in a tempest, and was thrown into a dun- 
geon by the king's enemy, the Duke de Mer- 

toeur ; ^ while his convicts were landed on Sable 

I 

■>' 1 The " Duke Mercury " of John Smith's True Travels, 

chaps, v., vi. 



36 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Island, and only saved from starving by the 
wild cattle descended from Lery's kine of four- 
score years before. 

While these things were going on there was 
a skipper of St. Malo, a man of good family and 
some property, Fran9ois Grave, Sieur du Pont, 
commonly known as Pontgrave, who had made 
up his mind that the Canada fur-trade was some- 
thing that ought to be developed. He had 
sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as Three 
Rivers, and had feasted his eyes upon the soft 
glossy pelts of mink and otter, lynx and wol- 
verene. The thing to do was to get a monopoly 
of the trade in furs, and with this end in view 
Pontgrave applied to a friend of the king, a 
wealthy merchant of Honfleur named Pierre 
Chauvin and a staunch Huguenot withal. An- 
other man of substance, the Sieur de Monts, 
became interested in the scheme, and the three 
formed a partnership ; while the king granted 
Pontgrave them a monopoly of the fur-trade on 
and Chauvin the condition that they should establish 

secure a mo- . rr\t • • •^ i i 

nopoiy of the a colony. 1 his privilege awakened 
fur-trade fiercc hcart-bumings among the gal- 
lant skippers of St, Malo, who declared that 
they had done more than anybody else to 
maintain the hold of France upon the St. Law- 
rence country, and there was no justice in sin- 
gling out one of their number for royal favour, 
along with merchants from Honfleur and else- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 37 

where. Similar complaints were heard from 
Rouen, Dieppe, and Rochelle ; the parliaments 
of Normandy and Brittany took up the matter, 
and a fierce outcry was made because Chauvin 
and Monts were Protestants. But this argument 
naturally went for little with Henry IV., and 
the monopoly was granted. 

Pontgrave and Chauvin made their head- 
quarters at Tadousac, where the waters of the 
Saguenay flow into the St. Lawrence. The traf- 
fic in furs went on briskly, but the business of 
colonization was limited to the leaving of mis- 
erable garrisons in the wilderness to perish of 
starvation and scurvy. So things went on from 
1599 to 1603, when Chauvin on his third voy- 
age died in Canada. The partnership was thus 
broken up, and the monopoly for the moment 
went a-begging. 

It was only for a moment, however. The 
governor of Dieppe since 1589 was Aymar de 
Chastes, a stout Catholic of the national party 
and a friend of Henry IV. On the great day 
of Arques in 1589, when the Leaguers boasted 
that their fat Duke of Mayenne,^ with his army 
of 30,000, would make short work of the king 
with his 7000, when the fashionable world of 
Paris was hiring windows in the Faubourg St. 

^ Mais un parti puissant, d'une commune voix, 
Pla^ait deja Mayenne au trone de nos rois. 

Voltaire, La Henriade, vi. 61. 



38 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Antoine, to see the rugged Bearnese brought in 
tied hand and foot, it was largely through the 
aid of Chastes that Henry won his brilliant vic- 
tory and scattered the hosts of Midian.^ It was 
therefore not strange that when, upon the death 
^ , of Chauvin this scarred and grizzled 

De Chastes r i i • 

succeeds Veteran asked for the monopoly in 

auvin furs, his request was promptly granted. 
Chastes soon found an able ally in Pontgrave, 
but even with the allurements of rich cargoes 
of peltries it was hard to get people to subscribe 
money for such voyages. Loans for such pur- 
poses were classed on the market as loans at 
heavy risk, and the rate of interest demanded 
was usually from 2S to 40 per cent.'^ 

While the preparations were briskly going on 
a new figure entered upon the scene, the noble 
figure of the founder of New France. Samuel 
Champlain was now about six and thirty years of 
age, having been born in or about the year 1 567, 
at Brouage, a small seaport in the province of 
Saintonge, not many miles south of Rochelle. 
The district, situated on the march between the 
Basque and Breton countries, was famous as a 

^ Michelet, Histoire de France, xii, 286 ; Gravier, Fie 
de Champlain, p. 6. 

^ Toutain, *' Les anciens marins de I'estuaire de la Seine," 
in Bulletin de la Societe normande de Geographic, 1898, xx. 
I 34 ; Breard, Le vieux Hotifieur et ses marins, Rouen, 1897, 
p. 59. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 39 

nursery of hardy sailors, and the neighbour- 
hood of Rochelle was one of the chief centres 
of Huguenot ferment. Champlain's father was 
a seafaring man, but nothing is positively 
known as to his station in society or as to his 
religion. One local biographer calls The early life 
him an humble fisherman, but the ofchampiain 
son's marriage contract describes him as of 
noble birth. The son was often called by con- 
temporaries the Sieur de Champlain, but that 
was chiefly perhaps after he had risen to em- 
inence in Canada. The baptismal names of the 
father and mother, Antoine and Marguerite, 
indicate that they were born Catholics ; while 
Samuel, the baptismal name of the son, affords 
a strong presumption that at the time of his 
birth they had become Huguenots. In later 
life Champlain appears as a man of deeply reli- 
gious nature but little interested in sectarian dis- 
putes, a man quite after the king's own heart, 
who realized that there were other things in the 
world more important than the differences be- 
tween Catholic and Huguenot. Champlain was 
to the core a loyal Frenchman, without a spark 
of sympathy with those intolerant partisans 
who were ready to see France dragged in the 
wake of Spain. 

The early years of this noble and charming 
man were mostly spent upon the sea. He was 
a true viking, who loved the tossing waves and 



40 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

the howling of the wind in the shrouds. His 
strength and agihty seemed inexhaustible, in 
the moment of danger his calmness was un- 
ruffled as he stood with hand on tiller, calling 
out his orders in cheery tones that were heard 
above the tempest.^ He was a strict disciplina- 
rian, but courteous and merciful as well as just 
and true ; and there was a blitheness of mood 
and quaintness of speech about him that made 
him a most lovable companion. In the whole 
course of French history there are few person- 
ages so attractive as Samuel Champlain. 

For several years until the peace of 1598 
Champlain served in the army of Henrv IV. 
as deputy quartermaster-general. One of his 
uncles was pilot major of the Spanish fleets, and 
after the peace Champlain accompanied him to 
Seville. A fleet was on the point of sailing for 
Mexico, under the Admiral Francisco Colombo, 
and Champlain obtained, through his uncle's 
influence, the command of one of the ships. 
Cham lain '^^^ voyagc, with the journeys on 
in the West land, lasted more than two years, and 
Champlain kept a diary, from which 
after returning to France he wrote out a narra- 
tive ^ which so pleased the king that he granted 

1 Champlain, Traite de la marine et du devoir d'' un bon 
martnier, pp. 1-7. 

^ An English translation from this MS. was published by 
the Hakluyt Society in 1859 under the title Narrative of a 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 41 

him a pension. In this relation Champlain de- 
scribed things with the keen insight and careful 
attention of a naturalist. Shores, havens, and 
mountains lie spread out before you, with the 
wonderful effects of snow-clad peaks rising from 
the masses of tropical verdure, birds of strange 
colour sing in the treetops, while hearsay grif- 
fins, with eagles' heads, bats' wings and croco- 
diles' tails lurk in the background ; and worse 
than such monsters, our traveller thinks, are 
the spectacles of Indians flogged for non-attend- 
ance at mass, and heretics burned at the stake. 
While making a halt at the Isthmus of Panama 
it occurs to him that a ship-canal at that point 
would shorten the voyage to Asia even more 
effectually than the discovery of a northwest 
passage. 

When Champlain returned to France he 
found Aymar de Chastes preparing to send 
Pontgrave upon a voyage to Canada. The 
veteran Pontgrave was brave and wise, resource- 
ful and light-hearted, just the sort of man whom 
Champlain would be sure to like. It is therefore 
not strange that we find him embarking in the 

Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico. The original MS. 
was first published in 1870 as the first volume of Champlain' s 
works edited by Laverdiere : Brief discours des chases plus 
remarquables que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a reconnues 
aux Indes occidentales au voyage qu* il en a faict en ice lies en 
Lannee mil v'^ iiij^^ xix, etc. 



42 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

enterprise with Father Pontgrave, as he used 
affectionately to call him. The two sailed from 
Cham Iain's Honflcur on the 1 5th of March, 1 603 , 
first voyage and scventy days later they were 
gliding past the mouth of the Sague- 
nay. As they approached the St. Charles they 
saw no traces of the Iroquois town of Stadacona. 
On they went, as far as Hochelaga, where Car- 
tier had been entertained sixty-eight years be- 
fore, but not one of its long bark cabins was 
left, nor a vestige of its stout triple palisade, 
nor a living soul to tell the story of the dire 
catastrophe. No Iroquois were now to be met 
upon the St. Lawrence except as invaders, nor 
were the accents of their speech to be heard 
from the lips of the red men who emerged from 
the thickets to greet Champlain and Pontgrave. 
The disap- Another name than " Canada " would 
pearance of havc bccomc attached to that country 

the Iroquois , , , , . ^ r 

viUage of had these explorers been the nrst to 
Hochelaga penetrate its wilds. No doubt, what- 
ever, can attach to the facts. There is no doubt 
that in 1535 Iroquois villages stood upon the 
sites of Montreal and Quebec, or that the 
Iroquois language was that of the natives who 
dwelt along the shores of the St. Lawrence ; 
while in 1603 the villages with their people and 
their language had vanished from these places, 
and instead of them were found Algonquin vil- 
lages of a much lower type and a ruder people. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 43 

known as Adirondacks, and speaking an Al- 
gonquian language. The visits of our good 
Frenchmen have placed dates upon a portion 
of one of those displacements or wanderings of 
people that have commonly gone on in barbaric 
ages ahke in the Old World and in the New. 
Just as we find Hunnish hordes in one age 
breaking their strength against the great wall 
of China and in another age mowed down by 
the swords of Roman and Visigoth in the val- 
ley of the Marne, just as we see the Arab smile 
and hear the Arabic guttural in Cordova and 
in Lucknow, so in the New World we find 
Dacotahs or Sioux strayed afar into the Caro- 
linas with their identity veiled under the name 
" Catawbas," and we recognize in the brave and 
intelligent Cherokees of Georgia pure-blooded 
Iroquois, own cousins of the Mohawks. 

Now the Iroquois, as we know them, while 
preeminent in power of organization, have not 
been a numerous family. Within our historic 
ken, which is so provokingly narrow, the most 
fruitful and abounding Indian stock has been 
that of the Algonquins. They include the 
Blackfeet of the Rocky Mountains and the 
Crees of the Hudson Bay country The Iroquois 
along with the Powhatans of Old Vir- f^'Xn- 
ginia, and Eliot's version of the Bible q"'ns 
for the natives of Massachusetts Bay is to-day 
for the most part intelligible to the Ojibways 



44 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of Minnesota. Obviously within recent times, 
that is to say since the fourteenth century, the 
Algonquins have been for a period of some du- 
ration a rapidly multiplying and spreading race, 
and their weight of numbers for a time proved 
too much for the more civilized but less numer- 
ous Iroquois to withstand. Thus in the Appa- 
lachian region we find the mound-building 
Cherokees retiring from the Ohio valley into 
Georgia before the advancing swarms of Shaw- 
nees ; and we see the Tuscaroras, another band 
of Iroquois, pushed into Carolina by the ex- 
pansion of the Algonquin Powhatans and Del- 
awares. 

From the time when white men first became 
interested in the Five Nations of New York, it 
was a firmly established tradition among the 
latter that their forefathers had once lived on 
the St. Lawrence, and in particular that they 
had a stronghold upon or hard by the site of 
Montreal ; but that they had been driven to 
the southward of Lake Ontario by the hostility 
of a tribe of Algonquins known as Adiron- 
dacks.^ Their first movement seems to have 
been up the St. Lawrence and across Lake On- 
tario to the mouth of the Oswego River, where 
for some time they had their central strongholds. 
Thence they spread in both directions. Those 

* Colden's History of the Five Indian Nations, London, 
I755> i- 23. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 45 

who settled at the head of the Canandaigua 
lake became known by the Algonquin name of 
Senecas, which has been variously interpreted. 
Those who stopped at a lake to the eastward, 
with a marsh at its foot, called Cayuga, or 
" mucky land," were known by that name. 
Those who kept up the ancestral council fires, 
and spread over the divide between the Oswego 
and Mohawk watersheds, and so on over the 
gentle rolling country eastward of the Skan- 
eateles or " long lake," have ever since been 
known as Onondagas, or " men of the hills." 
Eastward from this central region the people 
were called Oneidas, or " men of the boulders " 
(or perhaps " men of granite "), from the profu- 
sion of erratic blocks strewn over their territory. 
Furthest to the east, and most famous of these 
confederated warriors, were the people who 
called themselves, or were called by their kins- 
men, Caniengas, or " people of the flint " that 
was used in striking fire ; they are best known 
to history, however, by the name of Mohawk, 
or " man-eater," bestowed upon them by their 
Algonquin foes, and which all the Iroquois 
seem abundantly to have earned by their canni- 
bal propensities.^ 

The driving of the Iroquois up the St. Law- 

^ Beauchamp, Indian Names in New York, passim ; Mor- 
gan, League of the Iroquois, pp. 51-53 ; Ancient Society, 
p. 125. 



46 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

rence valley into central New York by their 
Algonquin assailants had remarkable conse- 
quences. For military and commercial purposes 
the situation was the best on the Atlantic slope 
of North America, The line of the Five Na- 
tions stretched its long length between the trea- 
sures of beaver and otter on the great lakes and 
the wampum beds on the coast of Long Island ; 
but if an enemy, from any quarter of the com- 
pass, ventured to attack that long line, forth- 
with it proved to be an interior line in follow- 
ing which he was apt to be overwhelmed. 

Along with this singular advantage of geo- 
graphical position the Five Nations soon learned 
the value of political confederation in preserv- 
ing peace among themselves while increasing 
their military strength. It was a common thing 
for Indian tribes of allied lineage to enter into 
confederation, but no other union of this sort 
was so artfully constructed, harmonious, and 
The Iroquois cnduring as the League of the Iro- 
confederacy q^ois. The date of the founding of 
this confederacy seems to have been not far 
from 1450, and we may suppose the great 
movement from the valley of the St. Lawrence 
to the lakes of central New York to have oc- 
curred about a century earlier. This group of 
Iroquois, which became the Five Nations, was 
an overgrown tribe which underwent expansion 
and segmentation. From the expanding Onon- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 47 

dagas the extreme wings first broke off as Sen- 
ecas and Mohawks ; afterward the Onondagas 
again threw off the Cayugas, while a portion of 
the Mohawks became marked off as Oneidas. 
To aboHsh war throughout their smiling coun- 
try by referring all affairs of general concern to 
a representative council was the great thought 
of the Onondaga chief Hiawatha, who, after bit- 
ter opposition in his own tribe, found a powerful 
ally in Dagonoweda, the Mohawk.^ Soon after 
the middle of the fifteenth century the work of 
these sagacious statesmen was accomplished, and 
thenceforth the people of the five tribes, from 
Canandaigua, "the chosen settlement," to Schen- 
ectady, " the plain beyond the opening," were 
proud to call themselves Hodenosaunee, or 
"Kinsmen of the Long House." Thenceforth 
they found themselves more than a match for 
the Algonquin foe, and able to go forth and as- 
sail him. 

But there were yet other Iroquois kinsmen 
beside those of the Long House. To the north 
of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Ontario as far 
west as the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron one 
might have encountered the populous tribe of 
Hurons. In blood and speech they differed no 
more from Mohawks than a Frank from a Fri- 
sian, or a Welshman of Wales from a Welsh- 
man of Cornwall. They were the rear of the 
^ Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, chap. ii. 



48 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

retiring Iroquois host, the buffer that took the 
first brunt of the Algonquin onsets. They were 
probably the last to leave the valley of the St. 
Lawrence. In all probability the towns of 
Outlying Hochelaga and Stadacona, visited in 
tribes of 1535 by Cartier, were Huron towns, 
which in the course of the next half 
century were swept away by the last advancing 
Algonquin wave. In Champlain's time the 
Huron boundaries all stopped west of the 
meridian of Niagara, and their population of 
20,000 souls was to be found mostly between 
Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. Between 
these Hurons and Lake Erie, west of the Ni- 
agara River, dwelt another tribe of identical 
blood and speech, known as the Attiwenda- 
ronks ; and south of Lake Erie came the Eries ; 
while down in the pleasant valley of the Sus- 
quehanna were the villages of the powerful tribe 
variously called Susquehannocks, Andastes, or 
Conestogas. All these were Iroquois, and were 
severely blamed by the Five Nations for refus- 
ing to accept Hiawatha's " Gift of Peace " and 
join the confederacy. They were scorned as 
base and froward creatures, so bent upon having 
their own way that they held aloof from the only 
arrangement that could put a curb upon the per- 
petual slaughter ; such, at least, was the purport 
of the solemn speeches that used to be made be- 
fore the council fires at Onondaga. The Five 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 49 

Nations were bound to be peace-makers, even at 
the cost of massacring all the human population 
of America. They fully appreciated the injunc- 
tion " Compel them to enter in." In the course 
of the seventeenth century we find them annihi- 
lating successively the Hurons, Attiwendaronks, 
Eries, and Conestogas, and after the customary 
orgies of torment and slaughter, adopting the 
remnants into their own tribes. In Champlaln's 
time the hatred between the Five Nations and 
the Hurons had come to such a pass that the 
latter forgot their ancient hostility to the Al- 
gonquins of the St. Lawrence, and were wont 
to make common cause with them against the 
dreaded Long House. In these ways, when 
Champlain arrived upon the scene, a situation 
had been prepared for him and for France, of 
which he understood absolutely nothing. 

Five years were to pass, however, before the 
gallant Frenchman was to taste the first fruits 
of the true significance of the disappearance of 
Hochelaga. When in the autumn of 1603 the 
returning ships arrived at Havre, they were met 
by the news that Chastes was dead. Once more 
the business must be reorganized, and this time 
it was the Sieur de Monts, already men- designs of 
tioned, who took the lead. This no- t^e sieur de 
bleman turned his thoughts a little to 
the southward, perhaps with a view to milder 
winters, and obtained from the king a grant 



50 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

extending from about the latitude of Montreal 
as far south as that of Philadelphia. There is 
a Micmac word, Acadie or Aquoddy, which 
means simply " place " or " region," and which 
appears in such names as Passamaquoddy. In 
French it has a romantic flavour, which is perhaps 
slightly enhanced in the English Acadia. To the 
country since famous under that name the Sieur 
de Monts brought his httle company in the 
spring of 1 604. There had been indignant out- 
cries over the circumstance that this gentleman 
was a Huguenot, but the king laughed at these 
protests. He insisted that Monts should so far 
defer to public opinion as to take a Romish 
priest with him to preach the gospel to the hea- 
then ; but he allowed him also to take a Calvin- 
ist minister for his own spiritual solace and en- 
livenment. Hardly had the French coast-line 
sunk below the horizon when the tones of enven- 
omed theological discussion were heard upon 
the quarter-deck. The ship's atmosphere grew 
as musty with texts and as acrid with quibbles 
as that of a room at the Sorbonne, and now and 
Homeric then a scene of Homeric simplicity 
quarrels ^^s cnactcd, when the curate and the 

parson engaged in personal combat. " I forget 
just now," says Champlain, "which was the hard- 
est hitter, but I leave you to imagine what a fine 
spectacle they made, aiming and dodging blows, 
while the sailors gathered around and backed 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 51 

them according to their sectarian prejudices," ^ 
some shouting " Hang the Huguenot ! " and 
others " Down with the Papist ! " On shore 
similar scenes recurred, with an accompaniment 
of capering and yelping Indians, to whom it was 
quite enough that a scrimmage was going on, and 
who were perhaps scarcely worse fitted than the 
combatants themselves to understand the issues 
involved. It happened that amid the hardships 
which assailed the little company these two zeal- 
ous men of God succumbed at about the same 
time, whereupon, says one of our chroniclers 
with a shudder, the sailors buried them in the 
same grave, expressing a hope that after so much 
strife they would repose in peace together.^ 

In our brief narrative there is no need for en- 
tering into the details of this first experience of 
white men in Acadia. The experiment occupation 
extended over three years, during of Acadia 
which there were voyages back and forth across 
the ocean with reinforcements to offset the losses 
from disease. Among the company, besides its 
leaders, were two men of rare and excellent qual- 
ity, the Baron de Poutrincourt and Marc Les- 
carbot, an advocate and man of letters who was 
seized by a sudden inclination for wild life. 
Among Lescarbot's accomplishments was a 
knack of turning off long Alexandrine verses by 

* Champlain, Voyages, 1632, i. 46. 

^ Sagard, Hist aire du Canada, 1636, p. g. 



62 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

the yard, but what was of far more value, he 
wrote a shrewd and pithy prose, abounding in 
good sense and cheer. After the priceless writ- 
ings of Champlain himself there are few books 
about the beginnings of New France with which 
we should be so loath to part as the three teem- 
ing volumes of Lescarbot. 

The first attempt at settlement was made at 
the mouth of the river Ste. Croix, but the fancy 
of Poutrincourt was captivated by the beautiful 
gulf to which the English in later days gave the 
name of Annapolis. He obtained from Monts 
a grant of the spot with its adjacent territory, 
Founding of and called it Port Royal. Thereafter 
Port Royal, ^hilc the worlc of these colonists was 

later Anna- 
polis concentrated, while Champlain spent 

much time in exploring and delineating the 
coasts. Of making charts he was never weary, 
and in following sinuous shore-lines he found 
delight. One of his first discoveries was the 
grand and picturesque island which he called 
" isle of the desert mountains," " L'Isle des 
Monts Deserts," a name which to this day by 
its noticeable accent on the final syllable pre- 
serves a record of this French origin. A little 
further to the west he entered and explored for 
Champlain somc distancc the Penobscot, which 
Net Eng-' fishcrmen often called the river of 
land coast Norumbcga, but he found no traces 
of the splendid city into which popular fancy had 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 53 

magnified Allefonsce's Indian village upon the 
island of Manhattan.^ Farther on he ascended 
the Kennebec, and was correctly told by Indians 
of the route to the St. Lawrence by the valley 
of the Chaudiere, the route which was traversed 
with such bitter hardship by Benedict Arnold 
and his men in 1775. ^^ ^^^ French navigator 
passed Casco Bay he began to notice a marked 
superiority in the Indians over the squalid Mic- 
macs and Etetchemins of Acadia. The wigwams 
were better built, and the fields of maize, beans, 
and pumpkins wore a kind of savage cheerful- 
ness under the scorching July sun. Champlain 
entered the Charles River, and mistook it for 
the great stream which was soon to be explored 
by Henry Hudson. After duly astonishing the 
natives of the triple-peaked peninsula, he passed 
on to Plymouth, sailed around Cape Cod, and 
proceeded as far as Nauset Harbour, where the 
supplies began to give out, and a direct return 
was made to the Bay of Fundy. 

The object of this coasting voyage was to see 
if any spot could be found for a settlement that 
would be preferable to those already visited in 
Canada or on the Bay of Fundy. For a moment 
the Charles River seems to have tempted these 
worthy Frenchmen, but they decided to go fur- 

^ In Gravier's Fie de Samuel Champlain, Paris, 1900, 
pp. 4.0—49, the reader will find more or less uncritical specu- 
lation connected with this little summer voyage. 



54 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

ther. Their narrative indicates a much greater 
coast population of red men than was found by 
the Mayflower Pilgrims fifteen years later, and 
enables us to form some idea of the magnitude 
of the pestilence which in the interval nearly de- 
populated the shores of Massachusetts Bay. In 
1605 all the best spots seemed to show Indian 
villages. The next summer Champlain made 
A second ex- ^nothcr rcconnoitring voyage from 
pioration of Port Roval, in company with Pou- 

the Massa- . . 

chusetts trincourt. They lost but little time in 

coast ggj.j.jj^g J.Q Cape Cod, and then in 

rounding Cape Malabar they had a singular ex- 
perience. At a distance of a league and a half 
from the shore they found the depth of water 
rapidly diminishing to less than a fathom, while 
on every side the waves leaped and gambolled 
in the wildest confusion. They got their bark 
across this ugly shoal with a broken rudder, lit- 
tle dreaming that only four years before the same 
spot, proudly rearing its head above the sea, had 
been described by Bartholomew Gosnold under 
the name of Nauset Island. It had lately been 
beaten down and submerged by the angry wa- 
ters, but nearly three centuries were consumed in 
washing away the fragments. The sea is now six 
fathoms deep there.^ 

After getting clear of this dangerous place 
Poutrincourt put into Chatham Harbour for re- 

^ De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discovery of America, p. 97. 







THE GULF OF ST. LAWP 




BY CHAMPLAIN, 1632 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 65 

pairs, and there he remained a fortnight, closely 
watched from the bushes by peering red men 
who one morning before daybreak came swarm- 
ing about a party of sleeping Frenchmen, and 
killed several. Thence our voyagers kept on to 
Hyannis, and from that neighbourhood descried 
a shore-line to the southward, which must have 
been either Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. 
By this time Poutrincourt had made up his mind 
that Port Royal was the best place for his colony 
after all, and so the prow was turned in that 
direction. 

Things went well enough with them until in 
a stress of weather near Mount Desert their 
rudder broke, and their last hundred and fifty 
miles were far from comfortable. As they en- 
tered the harbour of Port Royal a singular 
spectacle greeted them. That fortress consisted 
of a large wooden quadrangle enclosing a court- 
yard. At one corner, which came down to the 
water's edge, was an arched gateway flanked by 
rude bastions mounting a few cannon. One side 
of the quadrangle comprised the dining-room 
and officers' quarters, on the second side were 
the barracks for the men, on the third the 
kitchen and oven, and on the fourth a picturesque 
the store-rooms. Now on the No- ^^^'^"'"^ 
vember evening when Champlain and Poutrin- 
court sailed into the harbour they saw the build- 
ings brightly lighted and the arch surmounted 



56 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

by the royal arms supported on either hand by 
the heraldic emblems of Baron Poutrincourt 
and the Sieur de Monts. While the weary voy- 
agers were admiring the pageant there stepped 
forth from the gateway no less a personage than 
old Neptune, Lord of the Ocean, with a pom- 
pous retinue of Tritons, who marched with 
measured step to meet the ship, declaiming long 
Alexandrine rhymed couplets of praise and 
welcome. Thus was the tedium of the wilder- 
ness relieved by the ingenious Lescarbot, whose 
active brain was never idle, but in the intervals 
of work was sure to be teeming with quips and 
quirks and droll conceits. During the summer 
he had kept the men at work to good purpose, 
and not only raised a crop of maize, but made 
a respectable beginning with barley, wheat, and 
rye. It was to a well-stocked home that he 
politely ushered the voyagers, after wanderings 
which he would refrain from comparing with 
those of Tineas and Ulysses, inasmuch as he 
did not like to soil their holy missionary enter- 
prise with unclean pagan similitudes. In such 
whimsicalities there was a strong sympathy 
between the mariner of Saintonge and the law- 
yer of Vervins. Champlain praised Lescarbot's 
thrifty housekeeping, and devised a plan whereby 
their table might be always well supplied. The 
magnates at Port Royal, who occupied the 
dining-room, were fifteen in number ; Cham- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 57 

plain formed them into an order of knighthood, 
which he called " The Order of Good Times," 
and each member in regular rotation was Grand 
Master of the Order for one day, -pj^^ Knight- 
during which he was responsible not ly Order of 

t r \ 1 r 1 1 1 1 Good Times 

only tor the supply or the larder but 
for the cooking and serving of the meals. The 
result was a delicious sequence of venison, bear, 
and grouse, ducks, geese, and plover, as well as 
fresh fish innumerable, to go with their bread- 
stuffs and dried beans. Lescarbot boasted that 
the fare could not be excelled in the best res- 
taurants of Paris, and they had brought more- 
over such a generous quantity of claret that 
every man in the colony received three pints 
daily. Under such circumstances we need not 
wonder that there was no scurvy, or that there 
were only four deaths during the winter. Such 
comfort and immunity were unusual in those 
improvident days. 

It was with high hopes that these blithe 
Frenchmen hailed the approach of spring, but 
its arrival brought unwelcome news and re- 
minded them of the flimsiness of the basis on 
which such hopes had been sustained. The 
merchants and fishermen of Normandy and 
Brittany had never approved of the monopoly 
granted to Monts ; on the contrary they had 
never ceased to fight against it at court with 
money and personal influence, and now at last 



58 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

they had procured a repeal of the monopoly. 
Monts had spent on the enterprise a sum ex- 
ceeding ^100,000 of our modern money; he 
was allowed an indemnity of $6000 provided 
he could collect it from fur-traders. The blow 
Collapse of ^^^ dccisivc. If it proved so hard to 
De Monts' fouud colonics cvcn with the advan- 

monopoly ^ 1111 

tages or a monopoly, clearly there 
was no use in going on without such aid. The 
good Poutrincourt could not be induced to give 
up his plans for Port Royal, but three years 
elapsed before he was enabled to renew his 
work there. Meanwhile we must follow the 
fortunes of Champlain and Monts after their 
return to France. 

They first betook themselves to Paris, to 
confer with the king ; and Champlain tells us 
how day after day he walked the streets of the 
great city like a man in a dream. In early days 
he had loved the ocean and felt suffocated in an 
air that was not spiced with adventure. He had 
now left his heart in the wilderness, a subtle 
robber that in such matters never makes restitu- 
tion. He longed to follow up each entrancing 
vista in the woodland, and to improve his ac- 
champiain quaintance with its denizens, four- 
turns his footed or winged as well as human. 

attention to o 

Canada Especially was his curiosity whetted 

by the recollection of the mighty river which 
he had once ascended for so many miles. At 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 59 

Hochelaga, or rather upon the shore where that 
barbaric town had once stood, he had heard of 
oceans to the westward, by which his informants 
doubtless meant the great lakes, and he had 
been told of a cataract a league in width, down 
which leaps a mighty mass of water, which cer- 
tainly sounds to our ears like a reference to 
Niagara Falls. Champlain wished to see such 
things for himself, and he belie\^ed that the St. 
Lawrence fur-trade would prove a source of 
great wealth ; nor was he at all lacking in mis- 
sionary zeal. He was more than once heard to 
say that the saving of a soul is worth more than 
the conquest of an empire. Here then was 
important work which he felt that Frenchmen 
were called upon to do. He consulted with his 
comrades Monts and Pontgrave, and found in. 
them abundant sympathy. Henry IV. was in- 
clined to look with favour upon such schemes, 
but his able minister Sully took a different view. 
The European schemes of these two statesmen 
were far-reaching and of the utmost importance, 
and Sully believed that France had need at 
home of all the able-bodied men she could 
muster ; it was poor economy, he thought, to 
be wasting lives in Canada. There was also the 
cry against monopolies, but Henry neverthe- 
less yielded so far as to renew to Monts the 
monopoly in furs for one year, a concession 
which was far from showing the king's cus- 



60 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

tomary soundness of judgment, since it was too 
brief to be of much use. The grantee and his 
friends, however, could go on in the hope of 
further renewals ; and so in fact they did. 

In April, 1608, the expedition sailed from 
Honfleur, Champlain following Pontgrave at a 
The expedi- wcclc's interval. On arriving at Ta- 
tionofi6o8 Jousac our French adventurers got 
into further trouble in the matter of Father 
Adam's will. Pontgrave found a party of 
Basques trading with the Indians, and so far were 
they from taking his remonstrance in good part 
that a tussle ensued in which they boarded his 
ship, killing and wounding some of his men, and 
seized all his fire-arms. But on the arrival of 
Champlain the strangers became more peace- 
fully inclined, and an agreement was made by 
which the whole matter was referred to the 
courts of justice in France. 

Champlain then pursued his way up-stream 
past the island of Orleans to the narrow place 
where a mighty promontory rears its head over 
Quebec oppositc Point Lcvi. The French 

founded continued calling it by its Algonquin 

name ^ebec^ or " The Narrows," ^ and there, 
in what is now the Lower Town, they speedily 
reared a stack of buildings enclosed by a wooden 
wall mounting a few cannon and loopholed for 
musketry. While the building was going on 
^ Parkman, Pioneers of France, p. 329. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 61 

there was a leaven of treason at work in the 
company. A locksmith, named Duval, took it 
into his head that more was to be gained from 
playing into the hands of the Spaniards who had 
not yet left Tadousac than from loyally serving 
his own country. What private motives may 
have urged him we do not know. The plan 
was to murder Champlain and hand over the 
new fortress and all the property to the Basques. 
But the secret was entrusted to too many per- 
sons, and so came to Champlain's ears. Just as 
he had learned all the details a pinnace sent up 
from Tadousac by Pontgrave arrived upon the 
scene, and in it was a man whose fidelity was 
above suspicion. Champlain instructed him to 
invite Duval and three accomplices Treachery 
to a social evening glass in the cabin, ^"'^^"^ 
telling them that the wine was a present from 
some Basque friends. The bait was eagerly 
swallowed, and no sooner had the plotters set 
foot aboard the pinnace than to their amaze- 
ment they were seized and handcuffed. It was 
not clear just how far the plot had spread, but 
it mattered little now. In the middle of the 
summer night the little colony was aroused from 
its slumbers, and many a heart quaked with fear 
as the announcement was made of the detection 
of the plot and the arrest of the ringleaders. 
The long rays of the morning sun revealed the 
severed head of the locksmith Duval adorning 



62 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

the wooden gateway of the courtyard ; his three 
accomplices were sent to France to work in the 
galleys ; and a proclamation of pardon without 
further inquiry put everybody else at his ease. 
Treason and assassination had suddenly become 
unpopular. 

A terrible winter followed. When Pontgrave 
set sail for France in September with a magni- 
ficent cargo of furs he left Champlain 

The first /-v 1 -1 • 1 

winter at at Qucbcc With twenty-cight men. 

Quebec ^^ ^j^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^-^^^ ^f ^.j^^g^ 

were left alive. At last the good Pontgrave ap- 
peared with reinforcements and supplies, and 
it was arranged that he should carry on his 
trading at Quebec while Champlain should ex- 
plore the country. This was a task the mean- 
ing of which was to be learned only through 
harsh experience, but it was obvious from the 
first that it would involve penetrating the forest 
to a great and unknown distance from any pos- 
sible civilized base of operations. It was work 
of immense difficulty. To carry on such work 
with an army had well-nigh overtaxed the 
geriius of such commanders as Soto and Coro- 
nado, with the treasury of the Indies to back 
them. For Champlain, without any such re- 
sources, different methods must be sought. He 
must venture into the wilderness with a hand- 
ful of followers and as little encumbrance as 
possible of any sort. There seemed to be but 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 63 

one feasible way of approaching this problem, 
and this was to cultivate the friendship of such 
native tribes as might be most ser- 

1-1 Friendship 

viceable to nim on his long routes, with the in- 
By assimilating these expeditions to d|j^'„^^of^°"" 
journeys through a friendly country successful ex- 
the risks might be greatly diminished, 
and the solid results indefinitely increased. 

It was such considerations as these that 
started French policy in America upon the path 
which it was destined thenceforth to follow to 
the end. It was a choice that was fraught with 
disaster, yet it would be unjust to blame Cham- 
plain for that. Nothing short of omniscience 
could have looked forward through the tangle 
of wilderness politics that seems so simple to us 
looking backward. For Champlain's purposes 
his choice was natural and sagacious, but as to 
the particular people with whom he should ally 
himself he can hardly be said to have had any 
choice. Grim destiny had already selected his 
allies. The valley of the St. Lawrence Thiscondi- 
was the route for the fur-trade, and f'o" ^'=f«''- 

- . . . . , 1 • I "^ mines the 

iriendsnip must be preserved with subsequent 
the tribes along its banks and in- F'-^"^^ P^i^^^y 
ward on the way to those great seas of which 
Champlain had heard. The tribes on the St. 
Lawrence were Algonquins whom the French 
called Montagnais, but who were afterward 
known as Adirondacks to the English of New 



64 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

York. They were less intelligent and more bar- 
barous than the Iroquois. Agriculture and 
village life were but slightly developed 
the Indians among them, they were more depend- 
ent upon hunting and fishing, and as 
they showed less foresight in storing provisions 
for the winter their numbers were more fre- 
quently depleted by famine and disease. Farther 
up the great river and commanding the north- 
western trails were the Ottawas, another Algon- 
quin people considerably more advanced than 
the Montagnais ; while southerly from the 
Ottawas and bordering on the Georgian Bay, 
as already observed, were the Hurons, who 
rather than join the league of their Iroquois 
brethren preferred to maintain a sullen inde- 
pendence, and to this end kept up an alliance 
with their Algonquin neighbours. For such 
conduct the Hurons were denounced by the 
confederated Iroquois as the vilest of traitors. 

Thus the allies marked out for Champlain 
and his colony were the neighbouring Algon- 
quins and the Hurons. It was absolutely ne- 
cessary that friendship with these tribes should be 
maintained. In the autumn of 1608 Champlain 
champiam learned that it was in his power to 
allies himself (Jq them a signal favour. A voune: 

to the Ot- 1 • r 1 i • • 

tawas and Ottawa chicf who happened to visit 

Quebec was astounded at its massive 

wooden architecture and overwhelmed with awe 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 65 

at the voice of the cannon and the distant effects 
wrought by their bullets. Could not these weird 
strangers be induced to hurl their thunders and 
lightnings at the insolent enemy of the Algon- 
quins ? The suggestion suited Champlain's love 
of adventure as well as his policy. It was an ex- 
cellent means of getting access to the Ottawa's 
country. Late in the following June the woods 
about Quebec resounded with the yells of three 
hundred newly arrived Hurons and Ottawas im- 
patient to start on such an expedition as these 
forests had never witnessed before. It is a pity 
that we have no account of it from the red man's 
point of view ; it is fortunate, however, that we 
have such a narrative as Champlain's own. 

On the 28 th of June, 1609, after the custom- 
ary feast and war dance, they started from Que- 
bec, some three to four hundred bar- 
barians in bark canoes, and Champlain 
with eleven other Frenchmen, clad in doublets 
protected with light plate armour, and armed 
with arquebuses, in a shallop, which the Indians 
assured Champlain could pass without serious 
hindrance to the end of their route. The weap- 
ons of the red men were stone arrows, lances, 
and tomahawks, but already there were many 
sharp French hatchets to be seen which had been 
bought with beaver skins. Their route lay across 
that broad stretch of the St. Lawrence known as 
Lake St. Peter to the river which a generation 



GQ NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

later received the name of Richelieu. There they 
paused for some fishing and feasting, and some- 
thing happened which has been characteristic of 
savage warfare in every age. A fierce quarrel 
broke out among the Indians, and three fourths 
of the whole number quit the scene in a tower- 
ing passion and paddled away for their northern 
homes. The depleted war party, taking a fresh 
start, soon reached the rapids and carrying-place 
above Chambly, and there it was found that the 
shallop could go no further, since she could 
not stem the rapids, and was too heavy to be 
carried. Why the Indians had misinformed their 
white ally on this point it would be hard to say. 
Perhaps the inborn love of hoaxing may have 
prevailed over military prudence, or perhaps 
they may have entertained misplaced notions of 
the Frenchman's supernatural powers. At all 
events the shallop must go back to Quebec, but 
Champlain decided to go forward in a canoe, and 
from his men he selected two volunteers as com- 
panions. After they had passed the portage 
there was a grand roll-call, and it was found that 
the total force was four and twenty canoes car- 
rying sixty feathered warriors and the three white 
men. 

As they approached the noble lake which now 
bears the name of Champlain, but was long 
known as Lake of the Iroquois, their movements 
became more circumspect, they sent scouts in 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 67 

advance, and occasionally they consulted the 
tutelar spirits of departed Algonquin and Hu- 
ron heroes. _ To the pious Champlain consultation 
this sort of invocation seemed like an of departed 

, ^-^ ., heroes 

uncanny attempt to raise the Uevil, 
but he observed it narrowly and described it 
fully, according to his custom. A small circu- 
lar tent was raised, of saplings covered with deer- 
skins, and into it crawled the medicine-man, with 
shudders and groans, and drew together the 
skins which curtained him off from the specta- 
tors. Then the voice of the tutelar spirit was 
heard in a thin shrill squeak, like that of a Punch 
and Judy show, and if the manifestation were 
thoroughly successful the frail tent was rocked 
and swayed hither and thither with frantic en- 
ergy. This motion was thought by the awe- 
struck spectators to be the work of the spirits, 
but the scoffing Champlain tells us that he caught 
several distinct glimpses of a human fist shaking 
the poles, — which would seem to be a way that 
spirits have had in later, as in earlier times. 

As the war party came nearer and nearer to 
the enemy's country they took more pains in 
scouting, and at last they advanced Lake 
only by night. As the sky reddened champlain 
in the morning they would all go ashore, draw 
up their canoes under the bushes, and slumber 
on the carpet of moss and pine-needles until 
sunset ; then they would stealthily embark and 



68 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

briskly ply the paddles until dawn. It was on 
the 29th of July, a full month after leaving Que- 
bec, that they were approaching the promontory 
since famous under its resounding Iroquois name 
of Ticonderoga, or " meeting of the waters," 
since there Lake George is divided only by a 
thin strip of land from Lake Champlain ; as they 
were approaching this promontory late in the 
evening they descried a dark multitude of heavy 
elm-bark canoes which were at once recognized 
as Iroquois. Naval battles are not to the red 
man's taste. The Iroquois landed at once and 
began building a barricade, while the invaders 
danced a scornful jig in their canoes. 

War dances , . "^ , . , 

and the very air was torn asunder with 
yells. All night the missiles in vogue were 
taunts and jeers, with every opprobrious and 
indecent epithet that the red man's gross fancy 
could devise. Early in the morning the invaders 
landed, all except the Frenchmen, who lay at 
full length, covered with skins. There was no 
thought of tactics. The landing was unopposed, 
though the enemy were at least three to one. 
There were as many as 200 of them, all Mo- 
hawks, tall, lithe, and many of them handsome, 
the best fighters in the barbaric world. In the 
ordinary course of things the invaders would 
have paid dearly for their rashness. As it was, 
their hearts began to quake, and they called 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 69 

aloud for Champlain. Then he arose and coolly 
stepped ashore before the astounded Mohawks, 
while his two comrades moving to a flank posi- 
tion stationed themselves among the trees. Half 
palsied with terror at this supernatural visitation, 
the Mohawks behaved like staunch men, and 
raised their bows to shoot, when a volley from 
Champlain's arquebus, into which he had stuffed 
four balls, instantly slew two of their The Mo- 
chiefs and wounded another. A sec- ^^^Shl" 
ond fatal shot, from one of the other fire-arms 
Frenchmen, decided the day. The Mohawks 
turned and fled in a panic, leaving many prison- 
ers in Algonquin hands. Most of these poor 
wretches were carried off to the Huron and 
Ottawa countries, to be slowly burned to death 
for the amusement of the squaws and children. 
There was an intention of indulging to some 
extent in this pastime on the night following the 
victory, but Champlain put a stop to It. The 
infliction of torture was a sight to which he was 
not accustomed ; at the hissing of the live flesh 
under the firebrand he could not contain him- 
self, but demanded the privilege of shooting the 
prisoner, and his anger was so genuine and 
imperative that the barbarians felt obliged to 
yield. After this summer day's work there was 
a general movement homewards. It was a fair 
average specimen, doubtless, of warfare in the 



70 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Stone Age ; a long, desultory march, a random 
fight, a few deaths on the field and a few more at 
the stake, and nothing definitely accomplished. 
This last remark, however, will not apply to 
Champlain's first forest fight. A specimen of 
the Stone Age in all other particulars, it was in 
one particular — the presence of the three 
Frenchmen — entirely remote from the Stone 
Age. In that one particular it not only accom- 
plished something definite, but it marked an 
epoch. Of the many interesting military events 
associated with Ticonderoga it seems the most 
important. There was another July day 149 
years later when a battle was fought at Ticonde- 
This battle roga in which 20,000 men were en- 
defdi" ^ g^g^d ^^^ more than 2000 were killed 

hostility be- and wounded. That battle, in which 
FVench and AmcHcans and British were woefully 
the Iroquois defeated by the Marquis de Mont- 
calm, was a marvellous piece of fighting, but 
it is now memorable only for its prodigies of 
valour which failed to redeem the dulness of 
the English general. It decided nothing, and 
so far as any appreciable effect upon the future 
was concerned, it might as well not have been 
fought. But the little fight of 1609, in which 
a dozen or more Indians were killed, marks 
with strong emphasis the beginning of the 
deadly hostility between the French in Canada 
and the strongest Indian power on the con- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 71 

tinent of North America. In all human prob- 
ability the breach between Frenchmen and 
Iroquois would in any case have come very 
soon ; it is difficult to see what could have pre- 
vented it. But in point of fact it actually did 
begin with Champlain's fight with the Mohawks. 
On the July day when the Frenchman's 
thunder and lightning so frightened those dusky 
warriors, a little Dutch vessel named the Half- 
Moon, with an English captain, was at anchor in 
Penobscot Bay, while the ship's carpenter was 
cutting and fitting a new foremast. A few weeks 
later the Half-Moon dropped anchor above the 
site of Troy and within the very precincts over 
which the warriors of the Long House kept 
watch. How little did Henry Hudson imagine 
what a drama had already been inaugurated in 
those leafy solitudes ! A few shots of an arque- 
bus on that July morning had secured for 
Frenchmen the most dangerous enemy and for 
Dutchmen and Englishmen the most helpful 
friend that the mysterious American wilderness 
could afford. 



Ill 



THE LORDS OF ACADIA. — LATER 
HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 

WE must now turn our attention for a 
moment from Quebec to the Bay of 
Fundy, where it will be remembered 
that the withdrawal of the monopoly once 
granted to Monts had for the moment brought 
things to a standstill. While Monts and Cham- 
plain had forthwith renewed their labours on the 
Poutrincourt banks of the St. Lawrence, Poutrin- 
PorrRoyai, court had clung to his beloved set- 
1610 tlement at Port Royal. Thither he 

returned in 16 10 with a good priest who con- 
verted and baptized the squalid Micmacs of 
the neighbourhood, and then found it hard to 
restrain them from testing the efficacy of their 
new religion by sallying forth with their toma- 
hawks against the nearest heathen tribes. A 
certified list of baptisms was drawn up, and Pou- 
trincourt's son, usually known by the family 
name of Biencourt, returning next year to France 
for assistance, carried with him this list as a 
partial justification of the enterprise. Arriving 



THE LORDS OF ACADIA 73 

in Paris the gallant young sailor found the world 
turned topsy-turvy. The great Henry had been 
murdered by Ravaillac. " Never was king so 
much lamented as this," says James Howell in 
one of his letters/ The effects upon Europe 
were far-reaching, and in the New France, which 
had as yet been scarcely more than half ushered 
into existence, a new and unexpected turn was 
given to the course of events. 

The society of the Jesuits, which began in 
the year 1534 with seven members, had now 
come to number not less than 7000, and it was 
everywhere recognized as one of the most 
powerful agencies of the counter-reformation. 
In many directions its influence was beneficial, 
but there can be no doubt as to its Remotercon- 
disastrous results in France. The STathof 
dagger of Ravaillac pointed the way Henry iv. 
to the discontinuance of the States-General, the 
expatriation of the Huguenots, the wasting 
warfare of the last days of Louis XIV., the de- 
grading despptism of the next reign, and the 
ruthless surgery of the guillotine. Such were 
the cumulative results of the abandonment of 
the broad and noble policy inaugurated by 
Henry in 1598. At the time of his death they 
were of course too remote to be foreseen, but 
it was clear to everybody that the power of the 
* Howell's Familiar Letters, i. 49. 



74 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Jesuits was rapidly growing, and it was dreaded 
by many people for its ultramontane and Span- 
ish tendencies. 

At that time the spirit of propaganda was 
very strong among the Jesuits ; they aimed at 
The far- nothing short of the conversion of 
piamo"/the ^^^ world, and displayed in the work 
Jesuits such energy, such ability, such unal- 

loyed devotion as the world has never seen sur- 
passed. As early as 1549 St. Francis Xavier 
had penetrated to the remotest East and set up 
a flourishing church in Japan. Before the death 
of Claudio Aquaviva in 161 5 they had made 
their way into China. They had already estab- 
lished Christian communities in Brazil, and 
about this time began their ever memorable 
work among the Indians of Paraguay. It was 
quite in the natural course of things that they 
should include New France in their far-reach- 
ing plans. From Henry IV. they obtained but 
slight and grudging recognition, but his death 
for a moment threw the reins quite into their 
hands. There is something irresistibly funny 
in the alliance of the three women who made 
the success of the Jesuits their especial care, 
when one thinks of their various relations with 
the lamented king, — Marie de Medicis, the 
miserable and faithless queen ; Henriette d'En- 
traigues, the vile mistress ; and Antoinette, the 
admirable Marchioness de Guercheville, whom 



THE LORDS OF ACADIA 75 

Henry had wooed in vain. The zealous fathers 
might well believe that Satan and the good 
angels were alike enlisted in their behalf. 
Youno: Biencourt soon learned that „, 

o ^1 hey secure 

resistance was useless. It was in vain an interest 
that the merchants of Dieppe, who 
were fitting out a new expedition for America, 
protested that they would have no Jesuit priests, 
or other agents of the king of Spain, on board. 
Madame de Guercheville forthwith raised 
money by subscription, and bought a control- 
ling interest in the business. So the Jesuits 
came to Port Royal, and bitter were the dis- 
putes which they had with Poutrincourt and 
his high-spirited son Biencourt. An Indian 
sagamore of the neighbourhood, who loved 
these old friends, the grantees and true lords 
of Port Royal, came forward one day with a 
suggestion for sirnplifying the situation and 
securing a quiet life. Provided he could be 
sure it would be agreeable, he would take great 
pleasure in murdering the newcomers ! To his 
surprise this friendly service was declined. The 
grantees found that there was no contending 
against money. Loans were offered to Poutrin- 
court in emergencies when he had not the 
courage to refuse them, and thus a load of debt 
was created with the result that on his next visit 
to France, in 1613, he was thrown into prison. 
At that juncture a ship bearing the inau- 



76 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

spicious name of Jonas was fitted up with 
Jesuit money and manned by persons entirely 
in the interest of that order. Madame de 
Guercheville had bought out all the rights and 
claims of Monts to lands in Acadia, and she 
Madame de had also obtained from the boy king, 
StaTntr'^' Louis XI I L, a grant of all the terri- 
grantofthe tory bctwccn the river St. Lawrence 

coast from j y-ii • j tt ■ i 

Acadia to ^^1(1 1^ londa. Here was a grant that 
Florida came into direct conflict with that 

which James L of England had given only six 
years before to his great double-headed Vir- 
ginia Company. According to this new French 
charter the settlers at Jamestown were mere 
trespassers upon territory over which Madame 
de Guercheville was lady paramount ! Would 
she venture to claim their allegiance .? 

Nothing nearly so bold was attempted ; but 
when the Jonas arrived on the Acadian coast, 
the chief of the expedition, a gentleman of the 
court named La Saussaye, set up a standard 
bearing Madame de Guercheville's coat of 
arms. At Port Royal he picked up a couple of 
Jesuits and thence stood for Penobscot Bay, 

La Saussa e ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ entered Frenchman's Bay 

in French- at Mount Dcscrt, and dropped anchor 

man's Bay i r i i i i • 

there, tor the place attracted him. 
Presently a spot was found so charming that it 
was decided to make a settlement there. It was 
on the western shore of Somes Sound, between 



THE LORDS OF ACADIA 77 

Flying Mountain and Fernald Cove. Scarcely- 
had work begun there when a sloop of war 
came into the sound, carrying fourteen guns, 
and at her masthead was flying the little red 
flag of England. She was commanded by 
young Captain Samuel Argall, who had come 
all the way from James River to fish for cod, 
but incidentally Sir Thomas Dale, who was 
then governing Virginia under the title of High 
Marshal, had instructed him to look out for 
any Frenchmen who might have ventured to 
trespass upon the territory granted by King 
James to the Virginia Company. Argall had 
picked up some Indians in Penobscot Bay who 
told him of the white men at Mount Desert, 
and from their descriptions he recognized the 
characteristic shrugs and bows of Frenchmen. 
When his flag appeared in Somes Sound, the 
French commander La Saussaye, with some of 
the more timid ones, took to the woods, but a 
few bold spirits tried to defend their ship. It 
was of no use. After two or three ^he French 
raking shots the English boarded and captured by 
took possession of her. The astute "^^ 
Argall searched La Saussaye's baggage until he 
found his commission from the French govern- 
ment, which he quietly tucked into his pocket. 
After a while La Saussaye, overcome by hunger, 
emerged from his hiding-place and was received 
with extreme politeness by Argall, who ex- 



78 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

pressed much regret for the disagreeable neces- 
sity under which he had laboured. It was a 
pity to have to disturb such estimable gentle- 
men, but really this land belonged to King 
James and not to King Louis. Of course, 
however, the noble chevalier must be acting 
under a royal commission, which would lay the 
whole burden of the affair upon the shoulders 
of King Louis and exonerate the officers who 
were merely acting under orders. So 
rg stric gp^j^g ^j^g fQxy Argall, adding with 

his blandest smile that, just as a matter of 
formal courtesy, he would like to see the com- 
mission. We can fancy the smile growing more 
grim and Mephistophelean as the bewildered 
Frenchman hunted and hunted. When at length 
it appeared that La Saussaye could produce no 
such document Argall began to bluster and 
swear. He called the Frenchmen pirates, and 
confiscated all their property, scarcely leaving 
a coat to their backs. Then as he had not room 
enough for all the prisoners, he put La Saus- 
saye, with one of the Jesuit fathers and thirteen 
men, into an open boat and left them to their 
fate, which turned out to be a kindly one, for 
after a few days they were picked up by a 
French merchant ship and carried back to the 
Old Worid. 

As for the other Jesuit father with thirteen 
other men, Argall carried them to Jamestown, 



THE LORDS OF ACADIA 79 

where that great stickler for martial law, Sir 
Thomas Dale, was inclined to hang them all 
without ceremony ; but the wisdom of Master 
Reynard was Argall's, and he saw that this 
would be going too far. It might make serious 
trouble between the two Crowns, and would 
tend to reveal his trickery in a way that would 
be awkward. So he revealed it himself to Sir 
Thomas Dale, pulled La Saussaye's commission 
from his pocket, saved the lives of the captives, 
and remained master of the situation. Argaii re- 
Presently he sailed for the north b^'rnlport 
again with three ships and burned ^°y^ 
the settlement at Port Royal, destroying the 
growing crops and carrying away the cattle and 
horses. At the moment of the catastrophe 
Biencourt and most of his armed men were 
absent, and when they returned they were too 
few to engage with Argall ; so after a fruitless 
parley and much recrimination the English 
skipper sailed away. Next year the Baron de 
Poutrincourt was slain in battle in France, and 
his steadfast son Biencourt, succeeding to the 
barony and the title, still remained devoted to the 
father's beloved Port Royal. He obtained fresh 
recruits for the enterprise, and the little wooden 
town rose Phoenix-like from its ashes. At the 
French court there was grumbling over the con- 
duct of Argall, and complaint was made to King 
James ; and there the matter rested. 



80 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

The death of the elder Poutrincourt occurred 
in 1615. We must now return for a moment 
to 1609 and take up the story of Champlain 
after his memorable experience at Ticonderoga. 
In June, 16 10, he was called upon to repeat it 
on a larger scale. A party of 100 Mohawks 
had advanced as far as the site of 

Champlain i • r 

heips in the Contrccoeur, on the penmsula formed 
ofTnatuJk- there by the St. Lawrence and the 
ing party of Richelicu, 3. fcw milcs above the 
mouth of the latter river, and there 
they were overwhelmed by a large force of Al- 
gonquins aided by a dozen Frenchmen. The 
Mohawks, driven to bay, fought until only fif- 
teen were left alive. These were taken prison- 
ers, and one of them was surrendered to Cham- 
plain, while another was chopped into fragments 
and eaten. The rest were put to death with slow 
fires by the Algonquin women, who in this re- 
spect, Champlain tells us, are much more in- 
human than the men, " for they devise by their 
cunning more cruel punishments, in which they 
take pleasure, putting an end to their lives by 
the most extreme pains." * 

After this second taste of Indian warfare 
Champlain returned to France, and in the fol- 
lowing December married a young girl, Helen 
Boulle, daughter of one of the late king's pri- 
vate secretaries. Clearly Champlain was now no 

^ Foyages of Champlain, ed. Slafter, ii. 246. 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAM PL A IN 81 

Huguenot, for as this young lady was some- 
what too much of a Calvinist he left her for 
a while in the following spring at an Ursuline 
convent, where she might learn more whole- 
some opinions. At a later time she accompanied 
him to Canada, but he was not yet quite ready to 
bring her to such a place. On his next return, 
in 1611, he began building a Chris- Beginnings 
tian city on the site of the old Hoche- °f Montreal 
laga. Both in the interests of the fur-trade and 
of his proposed western explorations he thought 
it best to have an available station higher up 
the river than Quebec. The site where building 
operations were begun he called Place Royale, 
and on a part of it the Hospital of the Gray 
Nuns was afterwards erected. Scarcely was the 
work well begun, and a few substantial walls 
built, when Champlain again crossed the ocean. 
His old colleague Monts had been appointed 
governor of Pons, an important place near 
Rochelle, and could no longer pay attention to 
things in America. He therefore entrusted 
everything to Champlain, and it was agreed that 
in order to give to his enterprise the requisite 
dignity and protection it was desirable to secure 
as patron some personage of great social influ- 
ence. Such a person was found in Charles de 
Bourbon, Count of Soissons, a prince of the 
blood royal, who was made viceroy over New 
France, with Champlain for his lieutenant. To 



82 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

the latter was given full control over the fur- 
trade. This arrangement was scarcely made 
when Soissons died and a still greater magnate 
was found to succeed him, — namely. 

The Count D- Cr A' 

of Soissons Henri de rJourbon, rrmce or Londe, 
p"rince^of ^ "^^^^ celebrated, as Voltaire says, for 
Conde sue- having been the father of the great 

ceed Monts /^ j ' i • r i • i 

Londe, but emment tor nothmg else 
save petty ambition and greed. Champlain had 
come to doubt the wisdom of too exclusive a 
policy of monopoly, and he sought to organize 
a numerous association of merchants in the sea- 
port towns. During this arduous work, when- 
ever some little assistance at court was wanted 
the Prince of Conde was always ready to absorb 
the spare cash as a retaining fee. 

There was so much to be done that Cham- 
plain could not leave France in 1612, but a 
young man appeared in Paris with such a story 
about his experiences in the New World that 
fashionable society had an unwonted sensation. 
The name of this youth was Nicolas de Vignau. 
Two years before Champlain had let him go 
home with a party of Ottawas, in order to learn 
what he could about their country and perhaps 
A traveller's to inculcatc a fcw civilized ideas into 
*^^^ the heads of their warriors. Now 

Vignau strutted about Paris with the story that 
he had seen with his own eyes the western ocean ; 
at all events, he had followed the river Ottawa 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAM PLAIN 83 

Up to its origin in a lake, whence a river flowing 
northward had carried him down to the sea. On 
its shore he had seen the wreck of an English 
ship and the heads of eighty Englishmen who had 
been massacred by the natives ! It is not likely 
that this story was pure invention. The Ottawa 
River has its sources in a chain of small lakes, 
and from these a group of rivers, such as the 
Moose and Abbittibi, flow northward into James 
Bay, the southeasternmost portion of the vast 
Hudson Bay. Vignau may very well have heard 
of this route and have coupled with it some 
vague rumour of the mutiny and disaster at 
James Bay in which Henry Hudson lost his 
life in June, 1612. The plausibleness of his 
story and his straightforward manner carried 
conviction to everybody, to Champlain among 
others ; and Champlain resolved to make the 
visiting of that western sea the chief work of the 
summer of 1613. 

Late in May he started from the island op- 
posite Montreal, which in honour of the wife 
he had left behind he called Helen's Island. 
He had two canoes, carrying, besides himself 
and Vignau, three other Frenchmen and one 
Indian. Far up the Ottawa River champkin 
they made their way, with fierce and ^°awas^^ 
sanguinary opposition from the mos- 1613 
quitoes, of which Champlain writes with most 
lively disgust, but otherwise without unpleasant 



84 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

experiences. At Allumette Island they came to 
a thriving Ottawa village, many of the inmates 
of which had never seen any white man except 
Vignau. After the usual formalities of feasting 
and smoking, Champlain addressed the warriors 
in the kind of speech which he had learned that 
they liked, and concluded by asking for canoes 
and guides to take him further on, even to the 
country of the Nipissings. But here he read 
in the faces of his hearers that he had touched 
an unpleasant chord ; they were not on good 
terms with the Nipissings. The old chieftain 
Tessouat, who replied, gently rebuked Cham- 
plain for not having been at Montreal the pre- 
ceding summer to take part once more in a 
fight against the Iroquois. As for the canoes, of 
course if Champlain wanted them he should have 
them ; but oh, those Nipissings ! what could 
he be thinking of in wishing to go to them ? 
They would be sure to kill him ! and what 
a day of mourning for every true Ottawa that 
would be ! On Champlain's further representa- 
tions the canoes and guides were promised, and 
he stepped out of doors to get a breath of fresh 
air. No sooner w^as his back turned than the 
assembled warriors reconsidered the subject and 
decided not to grant the canoes. A message to 
this effect brought him back into the wigwam, 
and once more he had to listen to the tale of 
Nipissing depravity. Naturally he pointed to 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 85 

Vignau and observed that here was a man who 
had been to the Nipissings and had not found 
them quite so black as they were vignau's 
painted. " Ah ! " exclaimed old Tes- imposture 

■ 1 1 • discovered 

souat, turning upon the wretched im- 
postor, " Nicolas, did you tell him that you had 
been to the Nipissings ? " It was a terrible mo- 
ment for that silly young man, before that 
scowling company, with all those pairs of little 
snakelike eyes fixed savagely upon him. It mat- 
tered Httle whether he answered yes or no ; but 
after some moments of silence he replied stoutly 
that he had been there. Angry shouts of 
" Liar ! " arose ; for Vignau had really spent his 
whole winter in this very village, and everybody 
present knew it. Effrontery was of no avail ; he 
was plied with sarcastic queries which left him 
dumb and bewildered. Then quoth Champlain, 
" Look here, Vignau, if you have told me lies 
I will forgive what is past, but I insist that you 
tell the truth now, and if you fail me you shall 
be hanged on the spot." For a moment more 
the young rascal hesitated, then fell upon his 
knees and confessed the whole. The Indians 
begged to be allowed to kill him, but Cham- 
plain kept his word and the worthless life was 
spared. There was no further talk of canoes and 
guides, and our hero returned somewhat crest- 
fallen to Montreal. 

[Later in the season Champlain took ship 



86 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

for France where he enlisted the interest of the 
Recollet friars in the establishment of missions 
among the Indians. Armed with a royal patent 
champiain and the authorization of the Pope, he 
FraTewith returned to Canada in the spring of 
the Recoiiets 1615, accompanicd by four friars, 
whose singular garb at first greatly astonished 
their prospective flock. 

One of these missionaries, Le Caron, leaving 
his brethren at Quebec went on to Montreal, 
where he found the yearly gathering of Indian 
fur-traders. Champiain appeared a few days 
later, and was then besought by the throng of 
Hurons to join them in an attack upon the 
Iroquois. Yielding to these solicitations he 
returned to Quebec for equipment. In the mean 
time Le Caron went on with Indians, making 
his way in a northwesterly direction until he, 
Le Caron ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ whitc men, gazed on the 
reaches great Frcsh Water Sea of the Hurons. 

Lake Huron ^ r-i 1 • 

JNot many days later, Cnamplam 
arrived at the Huron villages and rejoined Le 
Caron, and on August 12 the first Christian 
service was held. 

Hardly was the work of the church in this 
abode of evil spirits begun with these solemn 
rites before attention was directed to the worldly 
project which the Hurons had most at heart. 
Champiain reached the chief village of the 
Hurons, Cahiague, the 17th of August. Feasts 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 87 

and war dances filled the hours of waiting till all 
the bands were gathered, and then, crossing Lake 
Simcoe, the Indians, accompanied by a handful 
of Frenchmen under the intrepid Champlain, 
pushed on rapidly by lakes and the river Trent 
to Lake Ontario. 

Boldly venturing upon this inland sea in 
their frail craft they safely reached the other 
shore. A few days' march brought them to the 
Iroquois village,^ where their first rash -pj^^ ^^^^^^ 
attack was successfully repelled, but «" the 
at the sound of French muskets and 
the hissing of the bullets the pursuing Iroquois 
fell back and sought protection within the pali- 
sades of their town. 

To enable an effective assault to be made 
upon these defences Champlain had a movable 
tower built, from which sharp-shooters could 
pick off Iroquois behind the palisades ; and also 
large shields to protect the assailing party from 
arrows and stones, in their efforts to set fire to 
the palings. But the excitement of battle was 
too much for these undisciplined hordes. They 
threw away the shields, rent the air with cries 
which made it impossible for Champlain to be 

^ [The situation of this fortified town of the Iroquois has 
been the subject of no little discussion. For the various views, 
see Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., iv. 125; Parkman, Pio- 
neers of France in the Nezu World, p. 402.'] 



88 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

heard, and in their haste lighted the fires on 
the lee side of the stockade, where they were 
champiain-s quickly put out by the water poured 
military down by the defenders. After three 

hours of aimless and ineffectual strug- 
gle, the Hurons fell back discouraged. Nor was 
Champlain able to rouse them to another set 
attack. They refused to stir unless they should 
be reinforced by some expected allies. These 
failing to arrive, the defeated Hurons gave up 
the contest and stole off, carrying their wounded 
in baskets upon their backs. They found their 
canoes unharmed, and safely recrossed the lake, 
but Champlain, greatly to his chagrin, was un- 
able to induce the leaders to fulfil their promise 
to conduct him back to Quebec. At the last 
he was fain to accept the shelter of the lodge 
of a Huron chief After some months spent in 
hunting, exploration, and the observation of 
Huron manners, Champlain returned to Quebec, 
where he was received as one from the dead. 

Champlain's plans to found a colony were 
in conflict with the commercial interests of the 
company of merchants who controlled the for- 
tunes of New France. For them the fur-trade 
was the chief concern, and the growth of settle- 
ment could but diminish the profitableness of 
this commerce. As a trading-post Quebec was 
a success, but the lapse of eight years from its 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 89 

beginnings saw only two farms in cultivation, 
one by the Recollet friars, the other by Louis 
Hebert, who brought his wife and Rivalry of 
children to Quebec in 1617, and es- '"'erests 
tablished the first Christian household in Can- 
ada. In 1610 Champlain brought his own young 
wife to Quebec, where she devoted herself with 
the zeal of a young convert to the spiritual wel- 
fare of the Indian women and children. These 
four years of missionary apprenticeship seem 
to have kindled her piety to such a flame that 
nothing would satisfy her but retirement from 
the world, and after her husband's death she 
became a nun. 

In 1 6a I the merchants of St. Malo and 
Rouen, owing to repeated complaints, were 
ordered to give place to two Huguenot mer- 
chants named De Caen. Their refusal brought 
on quarrels between the rival traders, and in 
weariness at these discords Montmorency sold 
his viceroyalty of New France to his nephew 
the Duke of Ventadour, whose interest in the 
welfare of Canada was wholly religious. It was 
through him that the order of the The coming 
Jesuits embraced New France in the o^thejesmts 
world-wide field of their labours. In 1625 Lale- 
mant. Masse, and Brebeuf began the work which 
was to place their names so high in the history 
of Canada. The far-seeing eye of Richelieu 



90 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

was now directed to the possibilities for the ex- 
tension of French power in the New World, 
and the wasted opportunities of eighteen years 
devoted to the conflicting interests of trade and 
religion, which had left Quebec with only one 
or two self-supporting families, and at most a 
motley population of little over one hundred 
persons, convinced the great minister that a 
radical change was necessary. He abolished the 
privileges of the De Caens, and formed the com- 
pany of New France, to consist of one hundred 
„, ^ members with himself at their head. 

I ne Une 

Hundred As- To this body, commonly known as 
the " One Hundred Associates," were 
granted the political control of all of New 
France, the commercial monopoly of the fur- 
trade forever, and of other commerce, except 
whaling and cod-fishing, for fifteen years, for 
which period the trade of the colony was to be 
exempt from taxation. In return, the Associates 
must settle in Canada during these fifteen years 
not less than four thousand men and women, 
who were to be provided with cleared lands after 
three years' residence. In contrast to the lax 
unconcern with which for the most part England 
saw her colonies peopled with all sorts and con- 
ditions of men, German Protestants and English 
Catholics, English Puritans and Irish Papists, 
New France was henceforth to be open only to 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAM PLAIN 91 

Catholics and Frenchmen. To attain the ideal 
of religious unity the strongest inducement for 
an energetic and progressive population to mi- 
grate was relinquished, and the inter- Religious 
esting possibility of the growth of a uniformity 
Huguenot New France side by side with a 
Puritan New England was rejected. 

Hardly had this reorganization been effected, 
when, through the outbreak of war between 
England and France, these plans were inter- 
rupted, and not only the possession but even 
the existence of the colony hung in the balance. 
The new company despatched four armed ves- 
sels in April, 1628, under Roquemont, one of 
their number, to succour the distressed colonists, 
and simultaneously Charles I. of England au- 
thorized a private expedition, patronized by 
London merchants and commanded by the 
three sons of their associate, Gervase Kirke, to 
dislodge the French from Acadia and Canada. 
The English fleet arrived first, but Champlain's 
sturdy resolution and the apparent strength of 
his position disconcerted them, and they turned 
back. But if the Kirkes failed to capture Que- 
bec, the blow they did inflict was hardly less 
serious, for they overwhelmed the expedition of 
relief led by Roquemont, and the feeble garrison 
dragged through another year in such misery 
that Champlain meditated the desertion of Que- 



92 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

bee and the capture of some Iroquois village 
where they would find a buried store of corn. 
Before so desperate a plan was resolved upon, 
Captain Kirke reappeared, this time to secure 
The capture ^^^ Surrender of Quebec, not through 
of Quebec by the valour of his attack, but through 
the despair of its holders. The 
English possession, however, was short-lived. 
Three years later, in accordance with the treaty 
of St. Germain-en-Laye, Canada and Acadia 
were restored to France in response to a demand 
which the honour of France, the personal pride 
of Richelieu as the head of the One Hundred 
Associates, and the pious urgency of Champlain 
for the conversion of the savages, all combined 
to press. In 1633 Champlain returned to Que- 
bec as governor under commission from the 
One Hundred Associates. For a brief two years 
more he guided the destinies of New France, 
champiain's His days of cxploration were over, 
last days ^^^ j^jg mind turned more and more 
to the development and extension of the mis- 
sions, to which all other interests were now sub- 
ordinate. On Christmas day, 1635, ^^^ father 
of New France passed away. Like Bradford 
and Winthrop, his contemporaries, he was not 
only the brave, patient, and wise leader of an 
epoch-making enterprise, but also its honest and 
dispassionate historian. Yet this was not all, 
for to-dav he is not less remembered as the 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 93 

adventurous and indefatigable explorer and the 
curious observer of savage life and manners.^ 

Recurring now to the rivalry between France 
and England for the possession of Acadia, the 
next stage to be noticed is the grant r^^^^ j 
of that region in 1621 by King grants Acadia 

" . . . ° to Sir Wil- 

James I. to Sir William Alexander, a rmm Akxan- 
member of the newly organized Coun- ^^'^ 
cil of New England, to be held under the name 
Nova Scotia as a fief of the Crown of Scotland. 
The first obstacle to the establishment of his 
sway Sir William found in the French occu- 
pants under the leadership of Biencourt. At 
Blencourt's death about the year 1623 his pos- 
sessions and claims fell to his friend and com- 
panion, Charles de la Tour. In 1627 Charles de 
la Tour petitioned the king of France to be 
appointed commandant of Acadia. His mes- 
senger was his own father, Claude de ciaude and 
la Tour, who, upon his return with charies de 
Roquemont's Quebec relief expedi- 
tion, was captured by the Kirkes and carried to 
England. Here, being a Protestant, he re- 
nounced his French allegiance and entered the 

^ [Champlain's works are easily accessible in the scholarly 
collected edition of the Abbe Laverdiere, 6 vols., Quebec, 
1870. An English translation of his Foyages hy C. P, Otis 
has been published by the Prince Society under the editorial 
charge of Rev. E. F. Slafter, who has added a memoir and 
extensive notes.] 



94 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

service of Sir William Alexander, who made him 
a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1629. 

The return of the father with a commission 
from England after he had been despatched to 
Legend of securc one from France produced a 
fideiitrto^ situation which has appealed alike to 
France poet, histoHan, and novelist, who have 

depicted the son sternly rejecting the father's 
solicitations to change his allegiance. The story 
is a doubtful one, and the facts seem to be that 
La Tour adapted himself to the changes in the 
political world with the readiness of the Vicar 
of Bray.^ 

The restoration of Canada and Acadia to 
France in 1632 forced the La Tours to trim 
their sails again, and Charles de la Tour suc- 
ceeded in getting a grant of lands and a com- 
mand from the French king. He soon found 
himself confronted by a shrewd and tireless ri- 
La Tour and ^al, D'Aunay Charnisay, the heir of 
D'Aunay ^.^g authority of Claude de Razilly, 
whom the king had sent over in 1632 to receive 
back Acadia from the English. The rivalry of 
these two chieftains revived in Acadia the petty 
warfare of the feudal ages. Ensconced in their 
rustic castles, first on opposite sides of the penin- 
sula of Acadia, — D'Aunay at Port Royal and 

^ [Roberts, History of Cmiada, p. 50 ; and Rameau, Une 
Colonic F'eodale en Am'erique, Paris, 1877, p. 57.] 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 95 

La Tour at Cape Sable, — and later, on opposite 
sides of the Bay of Fundy, where La Tour es- 
tablished his Fort St. Jean, — contesting each 
other's holdings, capturing each other's retain- 
ers, now proposing common action against the 
English interlopers, now appealing to Boston 
for assistance, they carried on the struggle inter- 
mittently for years/ 

Appeals to the king of France at first only 
complicated matters because of the uncertainties 
of Acadian geography, but in 1641 D'Aunay's 
superior influence at court prevailed. La Tour's 
commission was recalled, and he was ordered to 
report to the king in France. At the same time 
D'Aunay was authorized to take possession of 
La Tour's forts. La Tour refused obedience, 
and D'Aunay was ordered to seize him. La 
Tour, now finding himself in the dangerous 
plight of a rebel, had recourse to Boston for help, 
and convinced the leaders of the Puritan colony 
that his cause was just, and that D'Aunay was 
an intruder. Their help, however, was of little 
lasting advantage, and in 1645 D'Aunay cap- 
tured Fort St. Jean and hanged most of the 
prisoners. Five years later the tide turned, when 

^ [For the vicissitudes of this struggle the reader may be 
referred to Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia, to Rameau's 
Une Colonie F'eodale, and to Parkman's The Old Regime in 
Canada.'^ 



96 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

D'Aunay was drowned, leaving a widow and 
eight children. The skies then brightened for 
Death of La Tour, and he came back to Acadia, 
D'Aunay having succeeded in getting a new 
commission from the king. Madame D'Aunay 
was now overwhelmed with misfortune ; her 
claims and those of La Tour seemed incapable 
of adjustment, and, urged by the necessities of 
her children, she accepted La Tour's proposal 
to merge them with his by marriage.^ Hardlv 
had this promising settlement been effected when 
a force of New Knglanders under Major Robert 
Sedgwick of Charlestown, following secret in- 
structions received from Cromwell, suddenly 
attacked and conquered Acadia. Again La 
Tour's adroitness served him well. In 1656 he 
secured for himself, in conjunction with Thomas 
Temple and William Crowne, a grant of all of 
Acadia, but apparently he had now had enough 
of the labours and vicissitudes of founding a peo- 
ple, for in less than two months he relinquished 
La Tour his sharc to Temple, who devoted 
Sir Thomas^" himsclf with great energy to building 
Temple up the colony. Temple successfully 

weathered the change in government at the 
Restoration, reminding Charles IL that he had 
been faithful to his father, and " that one of the 
last commands that he whispered to Kirke on 

1 [Murdoch prints the marriage contract, i. 120-123.] 



LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 97 

the scaffold was to charge this king to have a 
care of honest Tom Temple." ^ The injunction 
was heeded so far as to allow Temple to retain 
Acadia, but it was not heeded to the extent of 
indemnifying him for his losses when Acadia was 
transferred again to France in 1667. 

The Lords of Acadia, from Sir William Alex- 
ander to Sir Thomas Temple, and not least the 
two indefatigable rivals, La Tour and D'Aunay 
Charnisay, had learned to their cost how great a 
labour it is to found a state.] 

^ \_Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, i. 496. This vol- 
ume contains many items on these Lords of Acadia.] 



IV 

WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 

WE must now return to the lifetime of 
Champlain and note some of the prin- 
cipal steps by which the French ac- 
quired control of the central portion of North 
America. Among the young men whom Cham- 
plain selected to send among the Indians to fit 
themselves for the work of interpreters was a 
Norman named Jean Nicollet. This 

Jean Nicollet • /- n i r i 

was m i6ib,and ror»the next sixteen 
years Nicollet's time was chiefly spent among 
the Ottawas and Nipissings, engaging in their 
various expeditions, and encountering with them 
the privations and hardships of the forest. In 
1634 Champlain sent Nicollet upon a western 
expedition. The object was to find out, if pos- 
sible, what was meant by the repeated stories of 
large bodies of water to the westward, and of a 
distant people without hair or beards who did all 
their journeying in enormous tower-like canoes. 
Nicollet thought that this must be an Oriental 
people, and in order that he might not present 
too strange an appearance when he should have 
arrived among them, he took along with him a 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 99 

Chinese gown of rich brocade embroidered with 
flowers and birds. 

Nicollet's route lay up the Ottawa River to 
Lake Nipissing, and thence to the Georgian 
Bay. On that broad expanse of water the party 
launched their canoes for a journey to the Sault 
Ste. Marie and the Ojibway tribe which dwelt 
in its neighbourhood. It does not appear that 
Nicollet gained any positive knowledge of Lake 
Superior, but he entered Lake Michi- NicoUet 
gan, and followed its western shores Ske^Michi- 
as far as Green Bay, where he met with gan 
Indians of strange speech who had never before 
set eyes upon a white man. These were Winne- 
bagoes, belonging to the great Dacotah family, 
and in their presence the robe of brocade was 
put to uses quite different from those which 
its owner had intended. The amazed redskins 
beheld in its wearer a supernatural being, and 
were more than confirmed in this belief when 
they heard the report and saw the flash of his 
pistol.* From Green Bay our explorer pushed on 
up the Fox River, where he fell in with a tribe 
of Algonquins famous for their valour, under 
the name of Mascoutins. These Indians told 
him of the existence of a " great water " in the 

* [On this expedition, cf. Jesuit ^^/^//i?;/j-,Thwaites's ed. 
xxiii. 275—279, and the monograph of C. W. Butterfield, 
History of the Discovery of the Northwest by John Nicolet, 
Cincinnati, 1881.] 



100 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

neighbourhood, and inasmuch as their speech 
was Algonquin, the words which they used were 
in all probability Missi-Sippi. Whether Nicollet 
entered the Wisconsin River or not is uncertain, 
but it seems probable that he went further to 
the south than Green Bay, to reach the country 
belonging to the Algonquin tribe of the Illinois. 
He also established friendly relations with the 
Algonquin Pottawattamies. After this he re- 
traced his course, and reached Three Rivers in 
July, 1635, just ^bout one year from the time 
of starting. 

Of course the " great water " to which Nicol- 
let's Indian informants alluded was the Missis- 
sippi River, but it was an easy and natural mis- 
take to Identify it with the western ocean, for 
which everybody had been so long and so eagerly 
looking. Many years elapsed before this and its 
kindred questions were correctly solved. The 
Jesuit influence, which after Champlain's death 
was long supreme in the colony, was not espe- 
cially favourable to western exploration. The 
scientific zeal of Champlain, which studied geo- 
graphy for its own sake, was not theirs, but their 
missionary zeal took them to great lengths, and 
Father jogues ]^ 1641 we find Father Jogues preach- 
near Lake ing the gospel to a concourse of red 
men hard by the outlet of Lake Su- 
perior.^ It is possible that the movements in 
^ [y<?-fa^V Relations, xx. 97 ; xxiii. 19.] 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 101 

that direction might have been more vigorously 
prosecuted but for the terrible Iroquois war re- 
sulting in the destruction of the Hurons in 1649. 
Ten years later the journey of two Frenchmen, 
Radisson and Groseilliers, is worthy of Radisson and 
mention because they reached a stream GroseiUiers 
which they called Forked River " because it has 
two branches, the one towards the west, the other 
towards the south, which we believe run towards 
Mexico." ^ This, of course, might be meant for 
the Mississippi and Missouri. Within the next 
three or four years Menard and AUouez ex- 
plored portions of the Lake Superior coast, and 
again heard enticing stories about the " great 
water." 

About this time a marked change came over 
Canada. In 1661 the youthful Louis XIV. as- 
sumed personal control of the gov- Accession of 

ernment of France, and it cannot be ^""'^ ^^^* 
said of him that either then or at any later time 
he was at all neglectful of the interest of Can- 
ada. As our narrative will hereafter show, if 
Canada suffered at his hands, it was from ex- 
cessive care rather than from neglect. In 1664 
and the following year the king sent three very 
able men to America ; the first was the Marquis 
de Tracy, to be military commander of New 
France, the Sieur de Courcelle, to be governor 

^ [Radisson' s narratives of his travels have been printed 
by the Prince Society, Boston, 1885.] 



102 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of Canada, and Jean Baptiste Talon, to be in- 
tendant of Canada. The intendant was an of- 
His changes ficcr chargcd with the duty of enfor- 
Idminisfr cing a minute system of regulations in 
tion the colony, and incidentally of keep- 

ing a watch upon the governor's actions, ac- 
cording to the universal system of surveillance 
for which the old regime in France was so not- 
able. With these men came as many as 2000 
fresh colonists, together with 1200 veteran in- 
fantry, as fine as anything Europe had to show ; 
so that there was now some hope that the Iro- 
quois nuisance might be kept at arm's length. 
Talon was a man of large views ; he had an 
inkling of what might be accomplished by such 
extensive waterways as those of North America; 
and it was his settled intention to occupy the 
interior of the continent, and to use the mouths 
of its southern rivers as places from which to 
emerge in force and threaten the coast of Span- 
ish Mexico. So aggressive was the mood of the 
French at this moment that Courcelle projected 
an invasion of the Long House, and in January 
and February, 1666, he proceeded as far as 
Schenectady, whence he retired on learning that 
Two expedi- the EngHsh had taken possession of 
Jh7iroqu"ois, New Netherland. In the ensuing au- 
1666 tumn another expedition was under- 

taken, and Courcelle, accompanied by Tracy, 
penetrated the greater part of the Mohawk val- 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 103 

ley. It was a singular spectacle, that of 600 
French regulars in their uniforms, marching 
through the woodland trails to the sound of 
drum and trumpet. At a later period such bold- 
ness would have entailed disaster, but at that 
time white men and their ways were still suffi- 
ciently novel to inspire a great deal of whole- 
some terror. It is not easy to calculate the 
death-dealing capacity of the unknown, and 
accordingly our Mohawks, though thoroughly 
brave men, retired in confusion before the con- 
fident and resonant advance of the Gallic chiv- 
alry.^ The moral impression thus produced was 
reinforced so effectively by Jesuit missionaries 
that the Long House was kept comparatively 
quiet for twenty years. Indeed, fears were en- 
tertained at times in New York that the French 
might succeed in winning over the Iroquois in 
spite of the past, but any such result was averted 
by the far-sighted policy of Sir Edmund An- 
dros and Thomas Dongan, and the ascendancy 
acquired over the Mohawks by the Schuylers 
at Albany. 

The remotest western frontier of French mis- 
sionary enterprise was now the northern portion 
of Lake Michigan from the Sault Ste. Marie 
to Green Bay. The French names dotted with 

^ [For these two expeditions, see the Abbe Faillon's Hist aire 
de la Colonie Fran^aise en Canada, iii. 130—158 ; Parkman, 
The Old Regime, pp. 236—256.] 



104 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

such profusion over that portion of the United 
States known as the Old Northwest preserve 
Contrasts be- for US an cloquent record of the trav- 

F^Ince and ^^^ ^^^ ^°^^^ °^ ^^^ °^^ CXplorCrS. 

New England Xhc Ncw England colonies were more 
than twenty times as populous as Canada, yet 
their furthest inland reach was to the shores of 
the Connecticut River at Deerfield and Hadley, 
while the French outposts were more than a 
thousand miles from the Atlantic. This differ- 
ence was partly due to the fact that the primary 
object of the English was to found homes, and 
reproduce in the wilderness the self-supporting 
and self-governing rural communities of the 
Old Country ; whereas the primary object of 
the French was either to convert the heathen, 
or to trade for peltries, or to settle geographical 
questions, and all this was a more migratory 
kind of work than founding villages. In par- 
ticular, the effects of Champlain's policy in be- 
coming a leader of the alliance against the Long 
House are conspicuously visible.^ It will be 
observed that for more than half a century after 
Champlain's attack upon the Onondaga fort, 
the route taken by Frenchmen toward the great 
West was up the Ottawa River and across 
the northern portion of Lake Huron. The 
French acquaintance with Lake Ontario was as 
yet but slight, while of Lake Erie they knew 

^ [See above, p. 70.] 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 105 

nothing save by hearsay. It was impossible for 
them to use those southerly routes because of 
the Iroquois. But inasmuch as the The French 
Iroquois by sudden raids to the north- to^^"^n°rth. 
ward could cut off the current of west 
the northwestern fur-trade at almost any point 
between Lake Ontario and the Sault Ste. Marie, 
it became very important for the French to 
maintain friendly relations with all the Algon- 
quin tribes about the great lakes, from the Otta- 
was to the Ojibways and Pottawattamies. These 
were among the prime necessities which car- 
ried their activity so far to the west, and it so 
happened that side by side with the devoted 
missionaries a peculiar kind of population was 
developed in adaptation to the wild and lawless 
life of these woodland regions. Among the 
picturesque figures of New France are those of 
the coureurs de bois, which, literally rendered, 
would be " runners of the woods." Many 
of these men were ne'er-do-weels Th 
brought over from France by a legis 
lation which insisted rather upon quantity than 
quality for the settlers of the New World. Their 
ranks were reinforced by those who for what- 
ever purpose were dissatisfied with steady work 
in a steady-going community. The paternal 
legislation of Louis XIV. would have had them 
marry French women of their own station, cul- 



e cou- 
reurs de bois 



106 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

tivate their small farm, and comport themselves 
with sober dignity. In point of fact, they 
tramped off to the woods, took to themselves 
Indian wives, and hunted the moose, or speared 
the salmon, or set traps for every four-footed 
creature with fur on its back. We are told, 
with much probability, by Charlevoix, that 
these men did not do nearly so much to civil- 
ize the Indians as the Indians did to barbarize 
them. 

It was certainly felt by Father Allouez that 
these wood rangers were as much in need of a 
missionary as the red men themselves, for early 
Father Ai- ^^ 1670 he busicd himself in preach- 
louez on the ing to them. At this time he reached 
the head of the Wisconsin River, and 
was told that six days' journey from there it 
flowed into the Mississippi or "Great Water." 
The " Jesuit Relation " for 1670 speaks of this 
"great water" as a very wide river, of which 
none of the Indians had ever seen the end, and 
it was not clear whether it emptied into the 
Gulf of Mexico or that of California. 

The politic Frenchmen at the north of Lake 
Michigan had their hands quite full with the 
relations, peaceful or hostile, of the Indian 
tribes. Thither had retreated the Hurons and 
Ottawas to get out of the reach of the dreaded 
Long House, and by coming hither they had 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 107 

given umbrage to the ferocious Dacotahs or 
Sioux, whom Father Marquette not inaptly- 
termed the Iroquois of the West. But the chas- 
tisement wrought by Tracy in the Mohawk 
country was reported with savage exultation 
from red man to red man along the chain of 
lakes, until it encouraged the Ottawas with the 
remnant of Hurons to move backward as far as 
Mackinaw and the great Manitoulin Island. 

In 1670, in accordance with the injunctions 
of the king, Talon despatched St. Lusson to 
take possession of the Northwest, and in the 
spring of 1671 the heights looking upon the 
Sault Ste. Marie witnessed a pageant such as 
none knew so well as Frenchmen how to prepare. 
Besides the tribes just mentioned, there were 
representatives from not less than a The French 
dozen others, Pottawattamies, Win- 'I'ono^fthT 
nebagoes, Illinois, Shawnees, Ojib- Northwest 
ways, Nipissings, and others, a vast assemblage 
of grunting warriors hideous with every variety 
of lurid paint, and bedizened with feathers and 
wampum. Here were games of ball, mock fights, 
and whatever peaceful diversion the barbaric 
mind was capable of finding pleasure in. These 
festivities continued for some weeks, inter- 
spersed with feasts at which were served the 
wild fowl of the season and abundance of fish, 
with that pride of the red man's menu, boiled 
dog. On the 14th of June, a great concourse 



108 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of people assembled in the bright sunshine at 
the top of a lofty hill, and there all the mag- 
nates present, white and red, affixed their sig- 
natures or made their marks to a document 
which practically claimed for Louis XIV. all 
the continent there was, from the Arctic Ocean 
to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the coast of 
Labrador as far west as land might go, which 
some bold spirits thought might be two or three 
hundred miles west of the Wisconsin River. 
These signatures were supposed to commit the 
Indian tribes as well as the Frenchmen to this 
extensive French claim. After the signing was 
over, an immense wooden cross was reared aloft 
and planted in the hole which had been dug to 
receive it, while the Frenchmen present, with 
uncovered heads, chanted an ancient Latin hymn. 
A post with the lilies of France was planted 
close by, while the French commander, Sieur 
de St. Lusson, held up a sod as symbolic of 
taking seizin of the land. It was felt, however, 
that all this pageant would be incomplete with- 
out a speech that would stir the hearts of the 
Indians, and Father Allouez, the orator of the 
day, knew how to tell them what they could 
Father Ai- appreciate. He informed the gaping 
louez depicts ^cd mcn that when it came to the 

the greatness . . _ i • i i j* 

of Louis busmess or massacre, their bloodiest 
^^^' chiefs were mere tyros compared with 

the most Christian king of France. He depicted 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 109 

that monarch as wet with the blood of his en- 
emies, and declared that he did not keep scalps 
as a record of the number slain simply because 
the carnage to which he was accustomed was so 
wholesale, that no such petty method of reck- 
oning would be of any use. Having listened to 
this ensanguined rhetoric, the assemblage broke 
up, and with the usual choruses of yelps and 
grunts, the tawny audience separated into count- 
less little groups and disappeared in the recesses 
of the forest.^ 

At the time of this wild ceremony there had 
already entered upon the scene the man who in 
some respects must be counted the most re- 
markable among all these pioneers of France. 
In the city of Rouen there had dwelt for sev- 
eral generations a family by the name of Cave- 
lier, wealthy and highly respected, whose mem- 
bers were often chosen as diplomats and judges, 
or for other positions entailing large responsi- 
bility. Although these people did not strictly 
belong to the noblesse, they were nevertheless 
lords of small landed estates, and the estate be- 
longing to the Caveliers was known as La Salle. 
In the year 1643, Rouen witnessed the birth of 
Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Early life of 
Salle. This boy seems to have been LaSaUe 
educated at a Jesuit school, but as he grew up, 

^ [For the text o^ this speech, see Jesuit Relatiotis, Iv. 
109-113, and Parkman, La Salle, pp. 44-46.] 



110 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

feeling no inclination for the priesthood, he 
parted from his old friends and teachers with a 
reputation for excellent scholarship and unim- 
peachable character. He had shown unusual 
precocity in mathematics, and a strong love for 
such study of physical science as could be com- 
passed in those days of small things. He was 
noted at an early age for a reserved and some- 
what haughty demeanour, a Puritanic serious- 
ness in his views of life, and a power of deter- 
mination which nothing could shake. It so 
happened that his elder brother, Jean Cavelier, 
a priest of St. Sulpice, was in Canada, and that 
circumstance may perhaps have drawn him 
thither. His entrance into a religious order had 
cut him off from his inheritance, so that his re- 
sources were then and always extremely meagre. 
On arriving in Montreal, La Salle 

La Salle ^ 

comes to acccptcd the feudal grant of a tract of 
Canada ^^^^ ^^ ^^^q place now Called La Chine, 

above the rapids known by that name. That 
La Salle must have entertained some purpose 
of exploring the wilderness before his coming 
to America is highly probable, for the first two 
or three years at La Chine were spent by him 
in the diligent study of Indian languages ; and 
he was not long in acquiring high proficiency 
both in Iroquois and in several dialects of Al- 
gonquin. One day he was visited by a party of 
Senecas, who spent some weeks at his house 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 111 

and had much to tell him about a river that 
they called the Ohio, which had its sources in 
their country and reached the ocean at a dis- 
tance so great that many months would be re- 
quired to traverse it. By the Ohio River, these 
Indians meant the Allegheny with the Ohio and 
the lower Mississippi, in which group- La saUehears 
ing their error was just as natural and "nd^resSvls 
no greater than we make in calling to explore k 
the upper and lower Mississippi by the same 
name ; whereas in fact, the Missouri with the 
lower Mississippi is the main river, and the 
upper Mississippi is the tributary. From the 
Senecas' account of the immense length of 
their Ohio River, La Salle concluded that it 
must fall into the Gulf of California, and hence 
afford the much-coveted passage to China. 

La Salle therefore decided that he would visit 
the Seneca country and ascertain for himself the 
truth of what he had been told. He found no 
difficulty in obtaining the requisite authorization 
from Courcelles and Talon, but as he had no 
ready money he was obliged to sell his estate 
of La Chine in order to raise the necessary 
funds. Just at that moment the sem- 

r o o 1 • T • Hisexpedi- 

mary or bt. !5ulpice was meditatmg tion com- 
a similar enterprise, but with a very ^"g'^Jex-^ 
different destination and purpose, pioration of 

rw^, • 1 1 II the Sulpicians 

1 hey wished to go northwesterly to 
convert some Indians whom they had been told 



112 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

surpassed all others for heathenish ignorance. 
To combine two such diverse expeditions into 
one was not an augury of success. 

In July, 1669, seven canoes carrying twenty- 
four men started up the river from La Chine, 
and after a voyage of thirty-five days they 
reached Irondequoit Bay on the south side of 
Lake Ontario, from which a march of twenty 
miles brought them to one of the principal 
Seneca villages. There they found the people 
in great excitement because of the return of a 
small war party with one young captive warrior. 
One of the French priests tried to buy him 
from his captors, but the village found the 
season dull and was determined not to be de- 
prived of its night's pleasure. So the French- 
men were obliged to look on for six weary 
hours while the young man was subjected to 
The way cvcry torturc that the red man's in- 
biocked by genuity could devise. After the life 

the Senecas ,. ". 1 r ^ • 1 1 i -i 

had quite lert his charred and writh- 
ing form, and after the body had been cut into 
fragments and passed about to be eaten as 
dainty morsels, the savage hosts were ready to 
inquire what service they could do to their 
guests. But when they heard what was wanted 
they became profuse in their warnings against 
the wicked Indians who dwelt on the banks of 
the Ohio. They would furnish no guides nor 
be in any way instrumental in leading their 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 113 

beloved friends into such unseemly dangers. 
Our Frenchmen had long since learned the 
true meaning of such ironical expressions of 
solicitude on the part of the red men. Practi- 
cally, they often amounted to a threat, as if to 
say. If you go down there we will kill you and 
lay the blame upon the Indians of that part. 
Why the Senecas did not wish the Frenchmen 
to pass through their country at that moment, 
unless it may have been the general Iroquois 
feeling toward Frenchmen, is not clear. At this 
juncture one of the Indians offered to guide the 
party by an entirely different route, from which 
they could reach the Ohio at a point lower 
down than originally contemplated. La Salle 
and the Sulpicians concluded to accept this offer, 
and were led back to the shore of Lake On- 
tario. They crossed the Niagara River just 
below the bluffs at Queenston and distinctly 
heard the magnificent sub-bass monotone of 
the great cataract, to which, perhaps, they were 
the first of Europeans to approach so near. At 
a village on the present site of Hamilton, La 
Salle was presented with a Shawnee prisoner 
who promised to take him across Lake Erie to 
the Ohio ; but a new turn to events was sud- 
denly given by the unexpected arrival of a 
couple of Frenchmen from the north- jvieetingwith 
west. One of these was Louis Joliet, 1°^'^*^ 
a man of about the same age as La Salle, who 



114 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

had, like him, been educated by the Jesuits and 
taken orders, but had afterward come to devote 
himself to mercantile pursuits. Talon, the In- 
tendant, had heard much of the copper mines 
on the shore of Lake Superior, the fame of 
which was very widespread in aboriginal Amer- 
ica, and he had sent Joliet to discover and in- 
spect them. In this quest the young French- 
man had not been successful, but he brought 
with him such a desperate account of the sinful 
condition of the Pottawattamies that the Sulpi- 
cian priests decided to go at once and convert 
La SaUe parts them, in spitc of all that La Salle could 
from the say. So the exploring party was 

Sulpicians , , i o i • ■ 

broken up, the bulpicians went to 
Sault Ste. Marie, where they met with a rather 
cold reception from the Jesuits, and after a 
while concluded to return to Montreal without 
anything to show for their pains. 

As for La Salle at that disappointing moment, 
he showed a quality for which he was ever after- 
ward distinguished. When he had started to do 
a thing he never reHnquished his purpose, 
although men and fortune forsook him. If he 
had been one of a Balaklava Six Hundred and 
the only survivor among them, he would have 
attacked the enemy, single-handed, with una- 
bated courage. Unfortunately, our sources of 
information partially fail us at this point, so that 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 115 

some uncertainty remains as to the route which 
La Salle took after the Sulpicians had left him. 
One account of his route — perhaps as probable 
as any — takes him by way of Lake ^^ g^jj^ ^^_ 
Chautauqua into the Allegheny val- piores the 
ley, and thence down the Ohio River 
as far as Louisville. In the following year he 
seems to have crossed Lake Erie from south to 
north, and ascended the Detroit River to Lake 
Huron ; thence to have passed into Lake Michi- 
gan and ascended the Chicago River, from which 
he found his way across the brief portage to 
the river of the Illinois. According to some 
accounts, he reached the Mississippi River on 
both these trips, first from the Ohio, and after- 
ward from the Illinois. But these conclusions 
are not well supported and have generally been 
pronounced improbable. 

An interest in this remote "great water" 
continued strongly to agitate many minds, and 
Talon had already settled upon Louis Joliet 
as a fit man to undertake its discovery, when 
circumstances led to a change of governorship 
for New France. Courcelles and Talon were 
both recalled, and in place of them the affairs 
of Canada were managed by one of „ 
the most remarkable Frenchmen of succeeds 
his time, Louis de Buade, Count of """^^ ^ 
Frontenac. This man was of the bluest blood 



116 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of France, a veteran soldier of no mean ability, 
and for executive capacity excelled by few. 
His talents for dealing with Indians were sim- 
ply marvellous. He could almost direct the 
policy of an Indian tribe by a wave of the hand. 
If need be, he could smear his face with war 
paint and lead off the demon dance with a 
vigour and abandon that no chieftain could hope 
to rival. He could out-yell any warrior in the 
Long House, and when he put on a frown 
and spoke sternly, the boldest warriors shiv- 
ered with fear. Among white men he was 
domineering and apt to be irascible. A man 
of very clear ideas, he well knew how to re- 
character of ^hze them, and cared little for the 
Frontenac advice of thosc who scemed to him 
frivolous or stupid. It was hinted that some- 
times in his management of money he was not 
above sundry slight peccadilloes, with which his 
enemies were fond of twitting him, but this was 
not always a safe game, since he was liable to 
retort upon his accusers with an utterly over- 
whelming tu quoque. On the whole, however, 
he must be called a man of public spirit, de- 
voted to the interests of his country, and with 
fewer serious failings than most of the public 
men of his age. In his general view of things 
he was far-sighted and not petty. If Talon had 
remained in Canada, Frontenac would probably 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 117 

have quarrelled with him, but as it was, he 
adopted most of that official's intelligent plans; 
among other things he warmly espoused the 
ideas of La Salle, and he confirmed the choice 
of Joliet for the proposed expedition to the 
Mississippi. The mention of Joliet reminds us 
that New France was coming of age as a colony, 
for this explorer was a native of the country, 
having been born at Quebec in 1645, ^^^ years 
after the death of Champlain. It appears that 
Toliet was a well-educated man and . r . u 

*' ^ Joliet chosen 

showed considerable proficiency in to explore the 

, 1 . 1 1 ■ T ' • 1 Mississippi 

the higher mathematics. It was said, 
too, that he was rather a formidable debater on 
questions of logic and metaphysics. There is 
nothing in his career that shows qualities of a 
lofty or transcendent order, but we get the im- 
pression of a prudent and painstaking man of 
sober judgment. 

At Mackinaw Joliet was joined by a Jesuit 
priest named Jacques Marquette, a native of the 
old Carlovingian capital, Laon, born 

, TT T • • 1 J r Marquette 

m 1637. He was distinguished tor 
linguistic talents and for the deeply spiritual 
quality of his mind. He seems to have had a 
poetic temperament profoundly sensitive to 
the beauties of nature and of art, while his reli- 
gion exercised upon him a transfiguring influ- 
ence, so that all who met him became aware of 



118 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

a heavenly presence. This gentle and exquisite 
creature was as brave as a paladin and capable 
of enduring the fiercest extremes of hardship. 

It was on the 17th of May, 1673, that Joliet 
and Marquette started with five companions in 
two birch canoes well supplied with dried corn 
and smoked buffalo meat. From Green Bay 
Joliet and they ascendcd the Fox River to Lake 
reaThYhT Winncbago, and after various adven- 
Mississippi tures reached the portage from which 
they launched their canoes on the Wisconsin 
River. One month from the day of starting they 
passed the bluffs at Prairie du Chien and glided 
out upon the placid blue waters of the upper 
Mississippi. Their joy, as Marquette informs 
us, was too great for words. A fortnight passed 
while they floated down-stream without disclos- 
ing any trace of human beings, but at length 
they came to a village called Peoria, where they 
were treated with great civility and regaled with 
the usual Indian dishes, while the chief, in a 
more than usually florid speech, assured them 
that their visit to his village added serenity to 
the sky and new beauty to the landscape and a 
fresh zest to his tobacco, but he really, as a 
friend, could not advise them to pursue their 
course, as it abounded with dangerous enemies. 
Disregarding this caution, however, they kept 
on their way without any ill consequences. 
They did not fail to note the striking spectacle 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 119 

below the cliffs at Alton where the furious 
Missouri, with its load of yellow mud accumu- 
lated during its 3000 miles' course through the 
mountains, rushes through, swallows ^, 
up and defiles the quiet blue waves the mouth of 
of the Mississippi. Down the turbid 
and surging yellow river they kept on for hun- 
dreds of miles, until they encountered parties 
of Arkansas and narrowly escaped without a 
fight. Presently they stopped at an Arkansas 
village where they were feasted as usual, but 
after the hilarity was over the principal chief 
informed them that a foul conspiracy was on 
foot to murder them, — an infringement of the 
laws of hospitality which he felt himself unable 
to sanction. This incident seems to have had 
its effect in deciding them to retrace their 
course. They had gone so far southward as to 
convince themselves that the river must empty 
into the Gulf of Mexico and not into the Ver- 
milion Sea, as the Gulf of California was then 
commonly called. This was the most impor- 
tant of the points which they had it in mind to 
establish, and it seemed to them better to return 
with the information already acquired than to 
run the risk of perishing and sending back no 
word. For such reasons they turned back on 
the 17th of July, just two months from their 
date of starting. After ascending to the mouth 
of the Illinois they went up to the head of that 



120 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Stream, and there met some Indians who guided 

them to Lake Michigan. It was about the 

end of September when thev reached 

The return r, r i • • 

Green Bay, after havmg wielded the 
paddles for more than 2500 miles. There the 
two friends parted. While Joliet made his way 
to Montreal with a report of what had been 
accomplished, Marquette lay ill at Green Bay 
for more than a year. A partial recovery of 
health led him to attempt the founding of a 
new mission at the principal town of the Illinois, 
to be called the Immaculate Conception, but his 
strength again gave out, and on the way to 
Mackinaw in the spring of 1675 ^^^^ beautiful 
spirit passed away from the earth. ^ 

The immediate effect of the voyage of Mar- 
quette and Joliet was to revive in La Salle the 
spirit which had led him down the Ohio River 
some years before. The conception of New 
France as a great empire in the wilderness was 
La Salle's taking a distinct shape in his mind, 
great designs Among its comprehcnsivc features 
were the extension of the fur-trade, the build- 
ing up of French colonies with an extensive 
agriculture, the conversion, of the Indians to 
Christianity, and the playing a controlling part 
in forest politics. Marquette and Joliet had 

^ [A translation of Marquette's own narrative may be 
found in J. G. Shea's History a?id Exploration of the Missis- 
sippi Valley, pp. 6-50.] 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 121 

well-nigh demonstrated that the Mississippi 
River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. One 
might, perhaps, suppose that a reference to the 
expedition of Soto more than a century before 
would have sufficed to establish the identity of 
the river descended by Marquette and Joliet with 
the river where the great Spanish knight was 
buried. But the Frenchmen of the seventeenth 
century seem to have known nothing about 
Soto or his explorations. To them the prob- 
lem was a new one. After once completely 
solving it. La Salle would be in a position to 
establish a town at the mouth of the great river. 
Such a town might become a commercial rival 
of the Spanish seaports in Mexico and the West 
Indies, while it would be a formidable menace 
to them in time of war. A chain of military 
posts might connect the town at the mouth of 
the Mississippi with the spot where the Illinois 
empties into that river, and similar chains might 
connect the Illinois on the one hand ^, ,,. . 

The Missis- 

with the Sault Ste. Marie, and on the sippivaUeyto 
other hand with Lakes Erie and ^ °""P'^ 
Ontario. It was the generally accepted French 
doctrine that the discovery of a great river gave 
an inchoate title to all the territory drained by 
the river, and this inchoate title could be com- 
pleted by occupation. La Salle's plan was to 
effect a military occupation of the whole Missis- 



122 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

sippi valley as far eastward as the summit of 
the Appalachian range by means of military 
posts which should control the communications 
and sway the policy of the Indian tribes. Thus, 
the Alleghanies would become an impassable 
barrier to the English colonists slowly pressing 
westward from the Atlantic coast. This became 
the abiding policy of the French in North 
America. This was the policy in attempting to 
carry out which they fought and lost the Seven 
Years' War. Of this policy such men as Talon, 
Frontenac, and La Salle were the originators, 
and in La Salle it found its most brilliant 
representative. 

An obvious criticism upon such a scheme is 
its mere vastness. In a colony recruited so 
„.^ , . slowly as Canada there were not 

Dimculty ot -^ 

carrying'out enough pcoplc to Carry it into opera- 
sovasapan ^j^^^^ Under the most favourable 
circumstances it could scarcely remain more 
than a sketch ; but La Salle believed that 
the inducements held out by an increasing fur- 
trade and enlarged opportunities of agriculture 
and commerce in general would bring settlers 
to New France and greatly accelerate its rate 
of growth. There was perhaps nothing necessa- 
rily wild in his calculations, except that he en- 
tirely failed to understand the inherent weak- 
ness of colonization that was dependent upon 
government support. 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 123 

When it came to performing his own part of 
the great scheme, the essential point of weak- 
ness was want of money, — a kind of weakness 
which has proved fatal to many a great scheme. 
In order to cure this want La Salle was inclined 
to resort to the agency which was chiefly in 
vogue in the seventeenth century, namely, that 
of monopoly. This at once enlisted against him 
.the fur-traders as a class. His friendly relations 
with Frontenac made it seem probable that he 
could get whatever he wanted, and in whatsoever 
quarter he turned his attention the La saiie's 
monopoly scare was excited and every arouse^oppo. 
possible device was adopted for hinder- sition 
ing his success, — devices which went all the way 
from attaching his property to hiring despera- 
does to murder him. Besides this. La Salle was 
regarded with coldness, if not hostility, by the 
Jesuits, whose service he had abandoned and 
whose schemes for civilizing the wilderness were 
often at variance with his. Moreover, with all 
his admirable qualities, La Salle was not exactly 
a lovable person. He was too deeply absorbed 
in his arduous work to be genial, and he was a 
stern disciplinarian against whom lawless spirits, 
familiar with the loose freedom of the wilder- 
ness, were liable to rebel. The history of his 
brief career of eight years after he had finally 
given himself up to his life work is a singular 
record of almost unintermitted disaster leading 



124 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

to a tragic end, yet relieved by one glorious, 
though momentary, gleam of triumph. 

One of Frontenac's first steps for the protec- 
tion of the fur-trade between Montreal and the 
northwestern wilderness was the erection of a 
strong wooden blockhouse at the outlet of 
Fort Fronte- Lake OntaHo. Its site was about that 
nac granted of the ptcscnt town of Kingston, and 

to La Salle • i i !-> ^ 

It was long known as l^ort l^rontenac. 
It served as a wholesome menace to the men 
of the Long House over across the lake. La 
Salle went to France and had an interview with 
Louis XIV., in which he obtained that mon- 
arch's authority to conduct an exploring expe- 
dition, and he was placed in command of Fort 
Frontenac on his promise to rebuild and greatly 
strengthen it. This promise was amply ful- 
filled. The fortress was rebuilt of stone accord- 
ing to sound military principles, and was strong 
enough to defy the attempt of any force that 
was likely to be brought against it. 

The next reach of La Salle's arm was from 
the outlet of Ontario to the Niagara River 
La Salle abovc the Falls. For the prosecution 
builds the of his enterprise canoe navigation 
seemed hardly to suffice, and on the 
Niagara River La Salle built and launched a 
schooner of some forty-five tons burden, armed 
with five small cannon, and carrying on her 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 125 

prow a grotesque griffin, the name that was given 
to her in honour of Count Frontenac's family 
arms. While these preparations were going on 
La Salle received a treacherous dose of poison, 
the effects of which his iron constitution threw 
off with rather surprising ease. He started out 
on his enterprise with about forty men, two of 
whom deserve especial mention for various rea- 
sons. Henri de Tonty was a native of Naples, 
son of the gentleman who invented the kind of 
life insurance for a long time popular Henri de 
as the Tontine. In his youthful days '^°"^y 
Tonty had one hand blown off in battle ; he 
had it replaced by an iron hand over which he 
always wore a glove, and he was commonly 
known among the Indians as Iron Hand. He 
was a man of direct and simple nature, brave 
and resourceful, and in every emergency was 
absolutely faithful to La Salle. 

A very different sort of person was Louis 
Hennepin, a native of Flanders, about thirty- 
seven years of age. He had early joined the 
Franciscan friars, and an irrepressible love for 
adventure brought him to Canada, lqujs 
where he found the wild solitudes Hennepin 
about Fort Frontenac quite in harmony with 
his tastes. He was a capable man with many 
excellent qualities, and on most occasions truth- 
ful, although his reputation has greatly suffered 



126 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

from one gigantic act of mendacity.^ We shall 
have occasion to note his characteristics as we go 
on. He was one of the advance party sent by 
La Salle to the Niagara River, and was probably 
the first of Europeans to look at the Falls. It 
is certain that he was the first to make a sketch 
of them for publication. Such a sketch is en- 
graved in his account of his journeys published 
in Utrecht in 1697, and is extremely interest- 
ing and valuable as enabling us to realize the 
changes which have since occurred in the con- 
tour of the Falls." 

It was in the autumn of 1678 that La Salle 
set sail in the Griffin. His departure was clouded 
The voyage by the news that impatient creditors 
of the Griffin \^^^ \^\^ hands upon his Canadian 
estates, but nothing daunted, he pushed on 
through Lakes Erie and Huron, and after many 
disasters reached the southern extremity of Lake 
Michigan. The Griffin was now sent back with 
half the party to the Niagara River with a cargo 
of furs to appease the creditors and purchase 

^ [Hennepin, in his Nouvelle D'ecouverte d'' un grand Pays 
situ'e dans P Am'erique, Utrecht, 1697, affirmed that he him- 
self had explored the Mississippi to its mouth, in 1680, thus 
anticipating the great exploit of La Salle, and he gave an ac- 
count of the voyage. This account Hennepin based on the 
journal that Father Membre kept of his voyage down the 
river in company with La Salle.] 

^ [Hennepin's sketch of the Falls is reproduced in Win- 
sor's Narr. and Crit. Hist., iv. 248.] 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 127 

additional supplies for the remainder of the 
journey, while La Salle, with his diminished 
company, pushed on to the Illinois, where a fort 
was built and appropriately named Fort Creve- 
cceur. It was indeed at a heart-breaking mo- 
ment that it was finished, for so much time had 
elapsed since the departure of their little ship 
that all had come to despair of her return. No 
word ever came from her. In that time of uni- 
versal suspicion there were not wanting whispers 
that her crew had deserted and scuttled her, 
carrying off her goods to trade with on their 
own account. But perhaps she may simply have 
foundered in some violent gale on the lakes. 

After a winter of misery it was evident that 
nothing could make up for the loss of the Griffin, 
except a journey on foot to Montreal, ^a saiie's 
Accordingly, in March, 1680, La temWe win- 
Salle started on this terrible walk of "■'°"''"^y 
1000 miles, leaving Fort Crevecoeur under 
command of the faithful Tonty. La Salle had 
with him a long-tried Indian guide, a Mohegan 
from Connecticut, who for many years had 
roamed over the country. He took with him 
also four Frenchmen ; and these six fought 
their way eastward through the wilderness, now 
floundering through melting snow, now biv- 
ouacking in clothes stiff with frost, now stop- 
ping to make a bark canoe, now leaping across 
streams on floating ice-cakes, like the runaway 



128 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

slave girl in " Uncle Tom's Cabin ;" in such 
plight did they make their way across Michigan 
and along the north shore of Lake Erie to the lit- 
tle blockhouse above Niagara Falls. All but La 
Salle had given out on reaching Lake Erie, and 
the five sick men were ferried across by him in 
a bark canoe to the blockhouse. We may see 
here how the sustaining power of wide-ranging 
thoughts and a lofty purpose enabled the scholar 
reared in luxury to surpass in endurance the 
Indian guide and the hunters inured to the 
hardships of the forest. He had need of all this 
sustaining power, for at Niagara he learned that 
a ship from France, freighted for him with a 
cargo worth about I3 0,000 in our modern 
money, had been wrecked in the St. Lawrence, 
and everything lost. He received this stagger- 
ing news with his wonted iron composure, and 
taking three fresh men in place of his invalids, 
completed his march of 1000 miles to Mon- 
treal. There he collected supplies and rein- 
forcements, and, returning as far as Fort Fron- 
Fresh disas- tcnac, was taking a moment's rest pre- 
'"^ paratory to a fresh start when further 

ill tidings arrived. In July there came a mes- 
sage from the fort so well named Heart-break. 
The garrison had mutinied, and after driving 
away Tonty with such men as were faithful, 
they had pulled the blockhouse to pieces and 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 129 

made their way eastward through Michigan. 
Recruiting their ranks with divers wood rangers 
of ill repute, they had plundered the station 
at Niagara, and their canoes were now cruising 
on Lake Ontario in the hope of crowning their 
work with the murder of La Salle. These 
wretches, however, fell into their own pit. Be- 
tween hearing and acting, the interval with La 
Salle was not a long one. That indomitable 
commander's canoes were soon upon the lake, 
and in a few days he had waylaid and cap- 
tured the mutineers and sent them in chains to 
be dealt with by the viceroy. La Salle now kept 
on his way to the Illinois River, intending to 
rebuild his fort and hoping to rescue , „ ,, 

_ i D La Salle goes 

Tonty with the few faithful followers to rescue 
who had survived the mutiny. That °^^ 
little party had found shelter among the Illinois 
Indians ; but during the summer of 1680 the 
great village of the Illinois was sacked by the 
Iroquois, and the hard-pressed Frenchman re- 
treated up the western shore of Lake Michigan 
as far as Green Bay. When La Salle reached 
the Illinois village he found nothing but the 
horrible vestiges of fiery torments and cannibal 
feasts. The only thing to be done was with- 
out delay to utilize the situation by cementing 
a firmer alliance than before with the west- 
ern Algonquins on the basis of their common 



130 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

enmity to the Iroquois. After thus spending 
Destruction the winter to good purpose, he set 
vtuteby"" out again for Canada in May, 1681, 
the Iroquois to arrange his affairs and once more 
obtain fresh resources. At Mackinaw his heart 
was rejoiced at meeting his friend Tonty, after 
all these wild vicissitudes, and together they 
paddled their canoes a thousand miles and came 
to Fort Frontenac. 

La Salle's enemies had begun to grow quite 
merry over his repeated discomfitures, but at 
length his stubborn courage for a time van- 
quished the adverse fates. On the next venture 
things went smoothly and according to the pro- 
gramme. In the autumn he started with a fleet 
of canoes, passed up the lakes from Ontario to 
the head of Michigan, crossed the narrow port- 
La Salle's age from the Chicago River to the 
aTdown'^the HHnois, and thence coming out upon 
Mississippi the Mississippi, glided down to its 
mouth. On the 9th of April, 1682, the fleurs- 
de-lis were duly planted, and all the country 
drained by the great river and its tributaries, a 
country far vaster than La Salle ever Imagined, 
was solemnly declared to be the property of the 
king of France, and named for him Louisiana.^ 

Returning up the Mississippi after this 

* [Father Membre's narrative of this voyage is given in 
translation in J. G. Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the 
Mississippi Valley, pp. 165-184.] 



WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 131 

triumph, La Salle established a small fortified 
post on the Illinois River which he called St. 
Louis of the Illinois. Leaving Tonty in com- 
mand there, he lost no time in re- La SaUe re- 
turning to France for means to com- tu'^s to 
plete his scheme. The time had ar- 
rived for founding a town at the mouth of the 
Mississippi and connecting it with Canada by a 
line of military posts. La Salle was well re- 
ceived by the king, and a fine expedition was 
fitted out, but once more the fates began to frown 
and everything was ruined by the ill fortune of 
the naval commander, Beaujeu, whom it was 
formerly customary to blame more than he 
seems really to have deserved. The intention 
was to sail directly to the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi, but the pilots missed it and passed be- 
yond ; some of the ships were wrecked paiiureofthe 
on the coast of Texas ; the captain, Mississippi 

, 1 r 1 1 1 • T expedition 

beset by roul weather and pirates, dis- 
appeared with the rest, and was seen no more. 
Two years of misery followed, and with the 
misery such quarrelling and mutual hatred as 
had scarcely been equalled since the days of the 
early Spanish explorers in South America. At 
last, in March, 1687, La Salle started on foot 
in search of the Mississippi, hoping to ascend 
it and find succour at Tonty's fort ; but he had 
scarcely set out with this forlorn hope when 



132 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

two or three mutineers skulked in ambush and 
shot him dead. Thus was cut short at the early- 
La Salle's age of forty-two the career of the man 
death whose personality is impressed in some 

respects more strongly than that of any other 
upon the history of New France. His schemes 
were too far-reaching to succeed. They re- 
quired the strength and resources of half a 
dozen nations like the France of Louis XIV. 
Nevertheless, the lines upon which New France 
continued to develop were substantially those 
which La Salle had in mind, and the fabric of 
a wilderness-empire, of which he laid the foun- 
dations, grew with the general growth of colo- 
nization, and in the next century became truly 
formidable. It was not until Wolfe climbed the 
Heights of Abraham that the great ideal of La 
Salle was finally overthrown. 



V 

WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 

IN the year 1670 the provincial parliament 
of Normandy condemned a dozen women, 
young and old, to be burned at the stake. 
Their crime was attendance upon the Witches' 
Sabbath. An appeal was taken to the Crown, 
and Louis XIV. was persuaded to Louis xiv. 
spare their lives on condition that ^°'"'""'^s 

I ^ the sentence 

they should leave the kingdom and of death im- 
never return. Astonishment and in- aiieged"^°" 
dignation greeted this exercise of royal witches 
clemency, and the provincial parliament sent a 
petition to the king containing a grave re- 
monstrance : " Your parliament have thought 
it their duty on occasion of these crimes, the 
greatest which men can commit, to make you 
acquainted with the general and uniform feel- 
ing of the people of this province with regard 
to them ; it being moreover a question in which 
are concerned the glory of God and the relief 
of your suffering subjects, who groan under 
their fears from the threats and menaces of this 
sort of persons. . . . We humbly supplicate 



134 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

your Majesty to reflect once more upon the 
extraordinary results which proceed from the 
The pariia- malcvolence of these people ; on 
mindy pro-"^ the loss of goods and chattels, and 
tests the deaths from unknown diseases, 

which are often the consequence of their men- 
aces ; ... all of which may easily be proved 
to your Majesty's satisfaction by the records of 
various trials before your parliaments." It is 
pleasant to be able to add that Louis XIV. was 
too well versed in the professional etiquette of 
royalty to withdraw a pardon which he had 
once granted, and so the poor women were 
saved from the flames. What we have espe- 
cially to note is that the highest court of Nor- 
mandy, representing the best legal knowledge 
of that province, in defining witchcraft as the 
infliction of disease or the destruction of pro- 
perty by unknown and mysterious means, de- 
scribes it as the greatest of all crimes, and has 
no more doubt of its reality than of burglary 
or highway robbery.^ 

This unquestioning belief in the reality of 
witchcraft has been shared by the whole human 

^ [For the original text and further particulars in regard to 
this petition Lecky refers to Garinet, Histoire de la Magie 
en Fra?ice, p. 337. Cf. also Rambaud, Hist, de la Civilisa- 
tion Fran^aise, ii. 154. "In 1672, Colbert directed the 
magistrates to receive no accusations of sorcery." Lecky, 
Hist, of Rationalism, i. 118.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 135 

race, civilized and uncivilized alike, from pre- 
historic ages to the end of the seven- ^^^ belief in 
teenth century/ There are tribes of witchcraft 

. , . , !• 1 J 1 J universal 

men with minds so little developed 
that travellers have doubted the existence of 
rehgious ideas among them ; but none have 
been found so low as not to have some notion 
of witchcraft. Indeed, one of the most primi- 

1 [For a comprehensive survey of the history of witchcraft 
and allied occult phenomena, from the standpoint of modern 
psychology, see Alfr. Lehman, Aberglaube und Zauberei, 
Stuttgart, 1898. Mr. Lecky's opening chapter on Magic 
and Witchcraft, in his History of Rationalism, still remains 
for the English reader the most convenient sketch of witch- 
craft in modern times. On the rise of modern witchcraft, 
the most scholarly investigation in English is that of H. C. 
Lea, in his Inquisition in the Middle Ages, vol. iii. chaps, vi. 
and vii. 

Recently there has appeared an investigation into the be- 
ginnings of the witchcraft delusion that surpasses all previous 
works in scientific thoroughness. It is Joseph Hansen's 
Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Hexenwahns 
und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter, Bonn, 1901. 
Hansen has presented his results in popular form in his Zau- 
berwahn. Inquisition und die Entstehung der Grossen Hexen- 
verfolgung, Munich, 1 90 1. In the Report of the American 
Hist. Assoc, for 1890 will be found an" admirably compact 
and learned sketch of" The Literature of Witchcraft," by 
Professor George L. Burr. An excellent selection of extracts 
illustrating the belief in witchcraft, the methods of trial, and 
the growth of the opposition is given in Professor Burr's The 
Witch-Persecutions, a pamphlet published by the University 
of Pennsylvania.] 



136 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

tive and fundamental shapes which the relation 
of cause and effect takes in the savage mind is 
the assumed connection between disease or death 
and some malevolent personal agency. The 
conceptions of natural disease and natural death 
are attainable only by civilized minds. To the 
savage, who has scarcely an inkling of such a 
thing as laws of nature, all death is regarded as 
murder, either at the hands of a superhuman 
power that must be propitiated, or at the hands 
of some human being upon whom vengeance 
may be wreaked. The interpretation of disease 
is the same, and hence one of the chief occu- 
pations of medicine-men and priests among 
barbarous races is the detection and punish- 
ment of witches.^ Hence among all the super- 
stitions, — or things that have" stood over" 
from primeval ages, — the belief in witchcraft 
vitaUty of has been the most deeply rooted and 
the belief ^j^g most tcnacious of life. In all 
times and places, until quite lately among the 
most advanced communities, the reality of 
witchcraft has been accepted without question, 
and scarcely any human belief is supported by 
so vast a quantity of recorded testimony. 

At the present day, among communities like 

^ [On the stubborn resistance made in modern times to the 
displacement of the Satanic theory ot disease and disaster by 
scientific theories, see A. D. White, History of the Warfare 
of Science with Theology, chaps, xi.-xvi.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 137 

our own, we may observe a wonderful change. 
Among educated people the belief in witch- 
craft is practically extinct. It has not simply 
ceased to be taken seriously, but it has vanished 
from people's minds. We recognize it as one 
of the grotesque features in an Indian's theory 
of things, or perhaps we find it cropping out 
among the odds and ends of diabolism that the 
negro mind retains from the old stock of Afri- 
can folk-lore, but we no longer associate such a 
belief with civilized men, and a good deal of 
historical study is needed to enable us to real- 
ize adequately its omnipresence only two cen- 
turies ago. 

What has caused this remarkable change in 
our mental attitude toward witchcraft ? Surely 
not argument. Nobody has ever re- ^ 

» . - Cause of the 

futed the evidence that once seemed final decay of 
so conclusive in favour of the belief. 
For the most part we should now regard that 
evidence as not worth the trouble of refuting. 
Some powerful cause has made our minds insu- 
perably inhospitable to such sort of evidence. 
That cause is the gigantic development of phy- 
sical science since the days of Newton and Des- 
cartes. The minds of civilized people have 
become familiar with the conception of natural 
law, and that conception has simply stifled the 
old superstition as clover chokes out weeds. It 



138 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

has been observed that the existence of evidence 
Rise of phy- i^ favouF of witchcraft closely depends 
sicai science upon the disposition to believe it, so 
that when the latter ceases the former disap- 
pears. Accordingly we find no difficulty in un- 
derstanding the universality of the belief until 
quite modern times. The disposition to believe 
was one of the oldest inheritances of the human 
mind, while the capacity for estimating evidence 
in cases of physical causation is one of its very 
latest and most laborious acquisitions. 

In 1664 there was a witch trial at Bury 
St. Edmunds in Sufiblk. The presiding justice 
An English ^^^ ^^^ Matthcw Hale, one of the 
witch trial most eminent and learned of English 
Matthew judges. Two aged widows. Amy 
"*^^ Duny and Rose Cullender, were in- 

dicted for bewitching six young girls and one 
baby boy. This infant was seized with fainting 
turns, and his mother, suspecting witchcraft, 
took counsel of a country doctor, who told her 
to hang the child's crib blanket all day in the 
chimney corner, and if on taking it down at 
nightfall she should see anything strange there, 
she was not to be afraid of it, but to throw it 
into the fire. Well, when she was putting the 
baby to bed she took down the blanket, and a 
big toad fell out and hopped about the hearth. 
" Oh, put it in the fire, quick," said she to a boy 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 139 

present, who forthwith seized the poor toad with 
a pair of tongs and held it in the blaze. There 
was a flashing as of powder, and a strange noise, 
and then the toad vanished ; but that Grotesque 
same evening Amy Duny sitting by ^''"*^"" 
her own fireside had her face all smirched and 
scorched. Of course Amy was the toad, and it 
was natural that she should be vexed at such 
treatment, so that when the baby's sister sud- 
denly sickened and died, and its mother grew 
lame enough to use crutches, it was all clearly 
due to Amy's diabolical arts. Absolute demon- 
stration was reached when Amy was sentenced 
to death, for then her witch-power ceased, and 
the lame woman forthwith threw away her 
crutches and walked as briskly as anybody. 

The other afflicted children complained of 
griping pains, and vomited crooked pins and 
twopenny nails. In the court-room when Amy 
Duny or Rose Cullender came near to them, 
they threw their aprons over their heads and 
writhed in agony. It happened that among the 
magistrates present were some hard-headed Sad- 
ducees. Lord Cornwallis and Sir Edmund Bacon 
suspected these fits and torments of being a 
wicked sham. They blindfolded the indications of 
girls, and had other old women ap- shamming 
proach and touch them. The girls '^"""^^ 
went off into fits every time without discrimi- 



140 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

nating between Rose or Amy and the other wo- 
men. But this trifling flaw in the case was 
nothing when set ofi^ against the weighty evi- 
dence of a witness who declared that Rose Cul- 
lender had given him hard words, and shortly 
afterwards his hay-cart was stuck in passing 
through a gate. Another deposed that Amy 
Duny had said, " That chimney of yours will be 
falling down one of these days," and so sure 
enough it did. After this there could be no 
doubt in any reasonable mind that Rose had be- 
witched the cart and Amy the chimney. The 
learned justice in his charge aimed a rebuke at 
the scepticism exhibited by some of the magis- 
sir Matthew tratcs ; he declared that the reality of 
the^re^ty'^of witchcraft was not open to question, 
witchcraft since it was expressly affirmed in Holy 
Writ, and provided for in the criminal codes of 
all nations. The jury took less than half an hour 
to agree upon their verdict of guilty ; and next 
week the two old dames were hanged at Cam- 
bridge, protesting their innocence with their last 
breath.^ 

Upon just such so-called " evidence " more 
thousands of innocent persons than it will ever 

1 Linton's Wiu/i Stories, p. 395. [Cotton Mather 
printed an account of this trial in his Wonders of the Invisible 
World, London reprint, 1862, pp. 111-120. He says it 
** was a Tryal much considered by the Judges of New Eng- 
land." Ibid. p. III.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 141 

be possible to enumerate have been put to death 
under the forms of law. It is difficult to accept 
all the wholesale figures mentioned by old his- 
torians, yet the figures for which we have good 
authority are sufficiently dreadful. In general 
we may regard it as probable that during the 
Middle Ages executions for witchcraft occurred 
with much the same monotonous regularity as 
executions for murder and other felonies, but 
from time to time there were epidemics of ter- 
ror when the number of victims was fearfully 
swelled. Now the famous bull of Pope Inno- 
cent VIII. against witchcraft, pub- Re^i^aiof 
lished in 1484, marks the beginning witchcraft 

-. . , , . r \ superstition 

or a new era m the history or the su- 
perstition.^ As literature and art have had their 
Golden Ages, so the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries were especially the Sulphurous Age of 
the witchcraft delusion. It was the period when 
the Church of Rome was engaged in a life and 
death struggle with heresy, and obnoxious per- 
sons suspected of heresy could sometimes be 
destroyed by a charge of witchcraft when there 
was no other method of reaching them. Thus 
the universal superstition was enlisted in the ser- 
vice of a militant and unscrupulous ecclesiastical 
organization with effects that were frightful. As 
it was understood that the diabolical crime of 

^ [This bull is given in an English translation by Burr, The 
Witch-Persecutmis, pp. 7—10.] 



142 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

witchcraft was now to be stamped out once for 
all, the evidences of it were naturally found in 
„, „ plenty. The" Malleus Maleficarum," 

The Ham- r J ^ ' 

merof or Hammer of Witches/ published 

in 1489, became the great text-book 
of the subject, and at no time since history be- 
gan have the fires of hell been so often lighted 
upon earth as in the course of the next two cen- 
turies. 

We are told by Martin del Rio that in 151 5 
not less than 500 witches were executed in the 
single city of Geneva ; and a certain inquisitor 
named Remigio boasted that in his district, in 
the north of Italy, within fifteen years he had 
personally superintended the burning of more 
than 900 such criminals." In Scotland, from 
1560 to 1600, the average annual number of 
victims was 200, making a grim and ghastly 
total of 8000 for the forty years. Or, to put it 
in another form, the executions averaged four 
each week in a population about equal to that 
of Massachusetts at the present day. In 1597 
that grotesque royal author, James VI., pub- 
lished at Edinburgh his treatise on^Dasmono- 

^ [An extract from this book is given by Burr, T'/ie Witch- 
Persecutions, and an analysis of it in RoskofF's Geschichte 
des Teufels, ii. 226-292. Cf. also Hansen, as above.] 

"^ \y^\\X\zm5, The Superstitio/ts of Witchcraft, Tp. 107. See 
also White, Warfare of Science and Theology, i. 358, 359.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 143 

logic," in which he maintained that against so 
foul a crime as witchcraft any sort of evidence is 
good enough, and the testimony of very young 
children, or of persons of the vilest „. , 

' r K-ing James 

character, ought on no account to be on the reality 

• , 1 T ,1 c . of witchcraft 

omitted. In the course or our story we 
shall see that James was by no means singular 
in this absurd style of reasoning. In 1604, 
scarcely more than a year after he had become 
King of England, Parliament passed the famous 
"Witch Act," which remained on the statute- 
book until the reign of George II. 

It was in the reign of Charles I. that trials 
and executions under the Witch Act were most 
frequent. While the Long Parliament 

. . ~, . . , , The delusion 

was m session the affair attained al- 



increases 



most the proportions of an epidemic, ^f"the%Vi-^ 
but under the rule of Cromwell there ta" pa^ty to 
was a sudden halt, and thereafter the 
delusion never fully recovered its hold upon 
the community. Cases like those of Amy Duny 
and Rose Cullender were sporadic. In that age 
of Newton and Locke, the whole baleful troop 
of demons were spreading their wings for their 
final flight from this world. 

The last executions for witchcraft, however, 
occurred in England in 17 12 and in Scotland 
in 1722.^ We may observe in passing that in 

^ [Cf. Lecky, i. 139.] 



144 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Germany the case of Maria Renata, a nun be- 
. ^ headed for witchcraft, occurred as late 

Last execu- / 

dons for as 1749, the year in which Goethe 

witchcraft -i i 

was born. 
Considering the fact that the exodus of 
Puritans to New England occurred during the 
reign of Charles I., while the prosecutions for 
witchcraft were increasing toward a maximum 
in the mother country, it is rather strange that 
so few cases occurred in the New World. It 
was already noted in Cromwell's time that In- 
dependency in ecclesiastical matters seemed to 
be attended by a diminution of activity in the 
world of witches, but on the other hand the 
Independents who came over to New Eng- 
Primitive ^^Tid voluntaHly thrust themselves 
America re- j^to a country which was supposed 

garded as a . "' j ' 

domain of to bc m 2. spccial scnsc under the 
the Devil direct control and administration of 
the Devil. It was believed that Pagan coun- 
tries generally were ruled by Satan, and that 
here in the American wilderness that old foe of 
mankind had taken his stand to annoy and dis- 
hearten the Lord's elect. As for the red men, 
it was easy to see that they were his veritable 
imps ; their tricks and manners proclaimed them 

1 rOn this case see White, Warfare of Science, ii. i 2 1 and 
156. He refers in particular to an essay on Maria (or Anna) 
Renata by Johannes Scherr in his Hammerschlage und Histo- 
rie».^ 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 146 

as such. There could be little doubt that the 
heathen New World was Satan's Kingdom ; * 
and in view of this very common belief it is 
strange that the instances of witchcraft or dia- 
bolism were so rare in the early history of New 
England. 

During the sixty years following the first set- 
tlement of Boston, a dozen or more cases can 
be enumerated. The first victim in the New 
World was Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, 
who had some sensible ideas about medicine. 
She disapproved of wholesale bleeding and vio- 
lent emetics, and used to work cures by means 
of herb tonics and other simple pre- -pj^^ ^^^^ ^;^_ 
scriptions. This offended the doc- timofthe 

J . /' o 1 witchcraft de- 

tors, and m 1 640 the poor woman lusion in New 
was tried for witchcraft, convicted, ^"s'and 
and hanged. Governor Winthrop, who tells 
the story, adds that at the very hour of her ex- 
ecution there was a great gale in Connecticut, 
which blew down trees, and this he considers 
an absolute demonstration of her guilt.^ When 
Winthrop wrote this, Isaac Newton was a child 
playing in the nursery. When we see a mind 
so broad and cultivated as Winthrop's enter- 

^ [See Cotton Mather, The Wotiders of the Invisible 
World, London, 1693, London reprint, 1862, p. 74.] 

2 [See Winthrop, ii. 326 (rev. ed., ii. 397) ; W. F. 
Poole, No. Am. Rev., April, 1869, pp. 343, 344.] 



146 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

taining such notions of cause and effect, is it 
not obvious that the mainstay and support of 
the frightful superstition was ignorance of phy- 
sical science ? 

About the same time, according to Thomas 
Hutchinson, a woman was hanged at Dor- 
chester, and another at Cambridge, for the 
crime of witchcraft. The next case was a star- 
tling one, on account of the victim's social posi- 
tion. A woman like Margaret Jones, though 
perhaps educated, and such as would to-day be 
classed as a lady, was in those times not called 
Mrs. Jones, but simply Goodwife or Goody 
Jones. To be Mrs., or Mistress, one must be 
the wife of an esquire, and the rank of esquire 
was as carefully guarded in common forms of 
speech as the rank of knight or baronet. The 
next victim of the witch-delusion was Mistress 
The case of -^^^ Hibbins. Her husband, Wil- 
Mrs. Hibbins jj^m Hibbins, who died in 1654, had 
been for twelve years a member of the council 
of assistants, and at one time was the colony's 
diplomatic agent in England. Her brother, 
Richard Bellingham, was deputy-governor of 
Massachusetts. In 1656 this lady was tried for 
witchcraft before Governor Endicott and the 
General Court. She was found guilty, and was 
hanged on Boston Common on the 19th of 
June of that year. The verdict and death-war- 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 147 

rant are in the Colonial Records,^ but we have 
no report of the case, and do not know how the 
accusation was originated. Hutchinson, whose 
great-grandfather Edward was one of the lady's 
friends, believed it to be a case of outrageous 
persecution, and so some of her contemporaries 
regarded it. The Rev. John Norton, persecutor 
of Quakers, was by temperament quick to see 
marks of Satan's presence, but he tried his best 
to save Mrs. Hibbins, and afterward a victim of 
spoke of her accusers with his cus- JJrough'Ju!!^ 
tomary sarcasm. Mrs. Hibbins was perstition 
hanged, he said, " only for having more wit 
than her neighbours." ^ One day she saw two 
persons whom she knew to be unfriendly to 
her talking together in the street, whereupon 
she exclaimed that she knew they were talking 
about her. Her guess being correct was forth- 
with cited against her as an instance of super- 
natural insight which must have been imparted 
to her by the Devil. According to Norton this 
argument had great weight with the Court. It 
is a pity, and it is strange too, that we know so 
little of this case, for there must have been 
something extraordinary in the circumstances 
that could thus send to the gallows one of the 
foremost persons in that colonial society. There 

^ [^Mass. Records, iv. pt. i. 269. The record is quoted 
in Winsor's Memorial Hist, of Boston, ii. 139.] 
2 [Hutchinson's Hist, of Mass., i. 173.] 



148 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

is evidence that the affair created fierce excite- 
ment and left much bitterness behind. There 
were many in Boston who insisted that a saint 
had been wickedly done to death by slanderous 
tongues. 

Out of a dozen cases in the course of the next 
thirty years we find several acquittals, and once 
in a while we encounter a gleam of genuine com- 
mon sense, as in the case of John Bradstreet of 
Rowley, who was accused of familiarity with the 
Devil ; forasmuch as the said Bradstreet con- 
fessed that he had "read in a book of magic, 
and that he heard a voice asking him what work 
he had for him. He answered, * Go make a 
A sensible bridge of sand over the sea ; go make 
j"''y a ladder of sand up to heaven, and go 

to God, and come down no more.' " When the 
case was tried at Ipswich, the jury found that 
the said Bradstreet lied, whereupon the court 
sentenced him to pay twenty shillings fine or 
else to be whipped.^ 

More disastrous was the case of the Good- 
win children in Boston in 1688. An Irish Cath- 
olic woman named Glover was laundress for 
John Goodwin's family, in which there were 
four children. One day the eldest child, Mar- 
tha, aged thirteen, accused the Glover woman 
of purloining some pieces of Hnen. Glover an- 

^ [Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem tillage, p. 34. This case 
occurred in 1652.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 149 

swered with threats and curses, and Martha 
presently fell down in a fit. The other children 
— aged eleven, seven, and five — soon fiDllowed 
her example. Then they went through with all 
sorts of pranks : they would pretend The Good- 
to be deaf and dumb ; they would "''" children 
complain of being pricked with pins or cut 
with knives ; they would bark like dogs and 
purr like cats ; they even performed feats of 
what modern spirit-rappers call " levitation," 
skimming over the ground without appearing 
to touch it, seeming, as Cotton Mather said, to 
"fly like geese." This sort of thing went on 
for several weeks. Doctors and ministers agreed 
that the children must have been bewitched by 
the Glover woman, and she was accordingly 
hanged. 

The chief interest in this case arises from 
Cotton Mather's connection with it. That fa- 
mous divine, son of Increase Mather cotton 
and grandson of John Cotton, was Mather 
then five and twenty years of age. He had been 
graduated at Harvard ten years before, his 
career as an author had already begun, and he 
was already regarded as the most learned man 
of his time. The range of his reading was 
enormous. Theology, philosophy, history, 
literature, physical science, in all these he was 
omnivorous, and he could write and speak at 
least seven languages (one of them the Iroquois) 



150 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

with fluency and precision.^ In the course of 
his Hfe he published nearly four hundred books 
and tracts, most of which bring a high price 
now, while some are indispensable to the student 
of history. He was an earnest and severely 
conscientious man. His chief foible 
was vanity, which was perhaps not 
strange in view of the wholesale homage and 
adulation to which he was accustomed. He 
was not a profound or original thinker, nor was 
he free from the errors and superstitions char- 
acteristic of his time ; but in most matters his 
face was set toward the future and his work 
was helpful to mankind. In 1 721, in spite of 
„. furious opposition and some personal 

His courage _ if ... 

in advocating peril, hc succccdcd in introducing 

inoculation • a • • i • r 1 1 

mto America inoculation ror small- 
pox,^ the most conspicuous among many in- 
stances in which he showed himself wiser than 
his contemporaries. With his other fine qualities 
he was a man of loving heart and gracious 
sympathies. But in the disputes and conflicts 
of his time he took too prominent a part to 
get along without making enemies ; and so it 
happened that after the witchcraft delusion 
had become thoroughly discredited, a malicious 
writer saw fit to distort and misrepresent his 
relations to it. The slanders of Robert Calef 

^ [Samuel Mather, Life of Cotton Mather, p. 49.] 

* [See Peabody's Life of Cotton Mather, pp. 31 1-326.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 161 

became the commonplaces of historical writers 
in a later generation, and the memory „. , 

o ' _ J \ lews or 

of Cotton Mather has been held up Caiefand 
to scorn as that of the man who did ^ ^"^ 
more than any one else to stimulate and foster 
the witchcraft delusion in Massachusetts. This 
view is maintained by Charles Wentworth Up- 
ham, in his history of "Salem Witchcraft,"- pub- 
lished in 1867 in two volumes, the most learned 
and elaborate work on the subject/ It was 
repeated at second hand from older writers 
and embellished with cheap rhetoric by George 
Bancroft, and has usually been copied by the 
makers of compendiums and school-books, so 
that it has obtained a firm lodgement in the 
popular mind. The correct view of Cotton 
Mather's relations to witchcraft was first set 
forth in Longfellow's " New England Trage- 
dies," published in 1868. The poet had studied 
the original documents with profound attention, 
and his fine critical insight had detected the 
truth where Upham, the Dryasdust specialist, 
had missed it. But the first full and adequate 
statement of the case was made in Mr. w. f. 
1869 by the late William Frederick p°°'^ 
Poole, who was at that time librarian of the 

^ [For the literature of this subject, see G. H. Moore, Bii>- 
liographical Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts, Worcester, 
1888, and Justin Winsor, "The Literature of Witchcraft 



152 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Boston Athenasum.^ Cultivation of the critical 
faculty and the exercise of it upon original 
sources of information are perpetually obliging 
us to modify, and sometimes to reverse, long- 
accepted judgments upon historical characters 
and events. In the present brief narrative I 
shall simply indicate, without controversy, the 
true position of Cotton Mather. 

His connection with the Goodwin case began 
late. He was the last minister invited to attend. 
He had nothing to do with the accusation or 
prosecution of the poor laundress, but after her 
Cotton death sentence he visited her twice in 

!he Goodwin P^son to pray for her. She confessed 
case to him that she had made a covenant 

with Satan, and was in the habit of going to 
meetings at which that personage was present. 
She was utterly impenitent and wanted none of 
his prayers. " However," as he says so sweetly 
in his account of the matter, " against her will 
I prayed with her, which, if it were a fault, it 
was in excess of pity." In her confession she 
implicated several other persons by name, but 
Mather never divulged any of these names, for, 
as he said, " we should be very tender in such 

in New England," Proceedings of the Am. Antiquarian Soc, 
1895.] 

1 [Mr. Poole's paper was published in the No. Am. Re- 
view in April, 1869. Mr. Upham replied to it in The His- 
torical Magazine in September, 1869.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 153 

relation, lest we wrong the reputation of the 
innocent by stories not enough inquired into." 
About the time of this woman's execution 
Mather took the little accuser, Martha Good- 
win, into his own home and kept her there for 
several months, partly as a subject for investi- 
gation, partly as a patient to be cured by prayer 
and judicious treatment,^ for this Cotton 
brilliant young clergyman was also a the'Jooj" 
doctor in medicine of no mean attain- wingiri 
ments, besides knowing more law, and knowing 
it to better purpose, than half the jurists of his 
time. The girl showed herself an actress of 
elf-like precocity and shrewdness. She wished 
to prove that she was bewitched, and she seems 
to have known Mather's prejudices against 
Quaker^, Papists, and the Church of England ; 
for she could read Quaker books and Catholic 
books fluently, and seemed quite in love with 
the Book of Common Prayer, but she could 
not read a word in the Bible or any Tests of be- 
book of Puritan theology, and even wkchment 
in her favourite Prayer Book, whenever she 
came to the Lord's Prayer, she faltered and 

^ ["I took her home to my own family, partly out of 
compassion to her parents, but chiefly that I might be a criti- 
cal eye-witness of things that would enable me to confute 
the Sadducism of this debauch'd age." Mather's Magnalia, 
ii. 460 (Hartford ed., 1853). The Magnalia was first pub- 
lished in 1700.] 



154 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

failed. Gradually the young minister's firm 
good sense and kindness prevailed in calming 
her and making her discard such nonsense, but 
during the cure her symptoms showed the 
actress. She would refuse to go into the study, 
lined with its goodly tomes of Greek and 
Hebrew, because her devils forbade it ; then she 
would go into hysterics of six-young-lady-power 
until it occurred to some one of the family to 
drag her, all screams and kicks, into the sacred 
room; then she would instantly grow quiet 
and say that the accursed thing had just gone 
from her in the form of a mouse, — which was 
of course a bit of ancient Teutonic folk-lore, 
a remnant of the doctrine of changelings, im- 
plicitly believed by our ancestors when they 
lived in what Freeman used to call Oldest Eng- 
land, before ever Hengist and Horsa sailed for 
Kent. After a while the little minx was cured; 
her distemper gave way to kind patience and 
common sense, and the affair went no further. 
Cotton Mather was a firm believer in the 
Mather reality of witchcraft. He published 

accoulirof" ^" account of this case and its cure.^ 
this case His objcct in the publication was two- 

^ [Mather's account of this case was included in his Mem- 
orable Providences, relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, 
etc., Boston, 1689. Reprinted in London in 1691 as Late 
Memorable Providences, etc. He also gave a full account in 
his Magnalia, Hartford ed., ii. 456-465.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 155 

fold : first, to prove the reality of witchcraft 
against a few bold sceptics who were lately be- 
ginning to doubt it, in spite of the teachings of 
Holy Writ; secondly, to show the best method 
of effecting a cure. In this second point he was 
in advance of his age, and had others been as 
discreet and self-contained as he, there need 
have been no such tragedy as was soon to be 
enacted in Salem. All personal and local refer- 
ences, whatever could give the mania a concrete 
hold and a chance to work bodily mischief, he 
had kept, and ever after kept, locked up within 
his own breast. He had evidence enough, per- 
haps, to have hung half the old women in Bos- 
ton, but his strong common sense taught him 
that the Devil is too tricksome a rascal to be 
worthy of much credit as an accuser. His rules 
of evidence were far in advance of those upon 
which the great lawyer. Sir Matthew Hale, had 
condemned people to death only four and 
twenty years before. Mather's rules would not 
have allowed a verdict of guilty simply upon 
the drivelling testimony of the afflicted persons, 
and if this wholesome caution had been ob- 
served, not a witch would ever have been hung 
at Salem. 

Some writers have thought that the mere 
publication of Mather's book must have led to 
the outbreak of the delusion in Salem, since it 
must have helped put such ideas into the heads 



156 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of Salem people. But this is forgetting that the 
superstitious ideas were in everybody's head 
Cotton already. Not a man, woman, or child 

Mather's jj^ Massachusetts, or elsewhere in the 

book and . . , . , 

the Salem civilized world, Dut Icncw exactly how 
^''°'' ^^ a witch should behave. Tracts and 

chap-books on the wretched subject abounded, 
and poisoned young minds as dime novels do 
in our time. Even if Mather had written no- 
thing, the execution of the Irish laundress and 
the pranks of her little accusers were familiar 
topics at every fireside in New England. 

But in 1692, quite apart from any per- 
sonal influence, there were circumstances which 
favoured the outbreak of an epidemic of witch- 
craft. In this ancient domain of Satan there 
were indications that Satan was begin- 

Gloomy .... 

outlook ning again to claim his own. War had 

^^ broken out with that Papist champion, 

Louis XIV., and it had so far been going badly 
with God's people in America. The shrieks 
of the victims at Schenectady and Salmon Falls 
and Fort Loyal still made men's blood run 
cold in their veins ; and the great expedition 
against Quebec had come home crestfallen with 
defeat. Evidently the Devil was bestirring 
himself; it was a witching time; the fuel for 
an explosion was laid, and it needed but a spark 
to fire it. 

That spark was provided by servants and 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 157 

children in the household of Samuel Parris, 
minister of the church at Salem Village, a group 
of outlying farms from three to five miles out 
from the town of Salem. The place was some- 
times called Salem Farms, and in later times 
was set off as a separate township under the 
name of Danvers. Any one who has ever vis- 
ited a small New England village can ^^^^^ 
form some idea of the looks of the village 
place, for the type is strongly characteristic, and 
from the days of Cotton Mather to the intro- 
duction of railroads the changes were not great. 
On almost any country roadside in Massachu- 
setts you may see to-day just such wooden 
houses as that in which Samuel Parris dwelt. 
This clergyman seems to have lived for some 
years in the West Indies, engaged in commer- 
cial pursuits, before he turned his attention to 
theology. Some special mercantile connection 
between Salem and Barbadoes seems to have 
brought him to Salem Village, where he was in- 
stalled as pastor in 1689. An entry 
in the church records, dated June 18 Parris, 
of that year, informs us that " it was ' ^ ^^^^""^ 
agreed and voted by general concurrence, that 
for Mr. Parris his encouragement and settle- 
ment in the work of the ministry amongst us, 
we will give him sixty-six pounds for his yearly 
salary, — one third paid in money, the other 
two third parts for provisions, etc. ; and Mr. 



158 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Parris to find himself firewood, and Mr. Parris 
to keep the ministry-house in good repair ; and 
that Mr. Parris shall also have the use of the 
ministry-pasture, and the inhabitants to keep 
the fence in repair ; and that we will keep up our 
contributions ... so long as Mr. Parris con- 
tinues in the work of the ministry amongst us, 
and all productions to be good and merchant- 
able. And if it please God to bless the inhabit- 
ants, we shall be willing to give more ; and to 
expect that, if God shall diminish the estates of 
the people, that then Mr. Parris do abate of his 
salary according to proportion." ^ 

This arrangement was far from satisfying the 
new minister, for it only gave him the use of 
the parsonage and its pasture lands, whereas 
he was determined to get a fee simple of both. 
^ . , Another entry in the parish book 

Parish trou- _ ■' J^ 

bies in Salem says that it was votcd to make over 
^^"^ to him that real estate, but this entry 

is not duly signed by the clerk, and at the time 
there were parishioners who declared that it 
must have been put into the book by fraudu- 
lent means. Out of these circumstances there 
grew a quarrel which for utterly ruthless and 
truculent bitterness has scarcely been equalled 
even in the envenomed annals of New England 
parishes. Many people refused to pay their 
church-rates till the meeting-house began to 

^ [C. W. Upham, Sa/em Witchcraft, i. 291,] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 159 

suffer for want of repairs, and complaints were 
made to the county court. Matters were 
made worse by Parris's coarse and arrogant 
manners, and his excessive severity in inflicting 
church discipline for trivial offences. By 1691 
the factions into which the village was divided 
were ready to fly at each other's throats. Chris- 
tian charity and loving-kindness were well-nigh 
forgotten. It was a spectacle such as Old Nick 
must have contemplated with grim satisfaction. 
In the household at the parsonage were two 
coloured servants whom Parris had brought 
with him from the West Indies. The 

Mr. Parris s 

man was known as John Indian ; the coloured 
hag Tituba, who passed for his wife, '"^^""^^ 
was half-Indian and half-negro. Their intel- 
ligence was of a low grade, but it sufficed to 
make them experts in palmistry, fortune-tell- 
ing, magic, second-sight, and incantations. Such 
lore is always attractive to children, and in 
the winter of 1691-92 quite a little circle of 
young girls got into the habit of meeting at 
the parsonage to try their hands at the Black 
Art. Under the tuition of the Indian servants 
they soon learned how to go into trances, talk 
gibberish, and behave like pythonesses of the 
most approved sort. These girls were -pj^^ 
Parris's daughter Elizabeth, aged "afflicted 
nine, and his niece Abigail Wil- 
liams, aged eleven ; Mary Walcott and Eliza- 



160 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

beth Hubbard, each aged seventeen ; Eliza- 
beth Booth and Susannah Sheldon, each aged 
eighteen ; Mary Warren and Sarah Churchill, 
each aged twenty. Conspicuous above all 
in the mischief that followed were two girls 
of wonderful adroitness and hardihood, Ann 
Putnam, aged twelve, daughter of Sergeant 
Thomas Putnam, and Mercy Lewis, aged 
seventeen, a servant in his family. This 
Thomas Putnam, who had taken part in the 
great Narragansett fight, was parish clerk and 
belonged to an aristocratic family. One of his 
nephews was Israel Putnam, of Revolutionary 
fame. Mistress Ann Putnam, the sergeant's 
wife, was a beautiful and well-educated woman 
of thirty, but so passionate and high-strung 
Mistress Ann that in her best moments she was 
Putnam scarcely quite sane. She was deeply 
engaged in the village quarrels ; she also played 
an important part in supporting her daughter 
Ann and her servant Mercy Lewis in some of 
the most shocking work of that year. Beside 
Mrs. Putnam, two other grown women, one 
Sarah Vibber and a certain Goody Pope, ap- 
peared among the sufferers, but were of no 
great account. The minister withdrew his own 
daughter early in the proceedings and sent her 
to stay with some friends in Salem town. The 
chief managers of the witchcraft business, then, 
were two barbarous Indians steeped to the 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 161 

marrow in demonolatry, the half-crazed and 
vindictive Mrs. Putnam, and nine girls between 
the ages of eleven and twenty. 

These girls came to be known as the " Af- 
flicted Children." Their proceedings began at 
the parsonage about Christmas time, 1691. 
They would get down on all fours, crawl under 
chairs and tables, go off into fits, and speak an 
unintelligible jargon. All this may have been 
begun in sport. It would doubtless tickle them 
to find how well they could imitate „ . . 

T J. ,. . J , . Beginnings 

Indian medicme, and the temptation of the 
to show off their accomplishments *'°" ^^^ 
would be too great to be resisted. Then if 
they found their elders taking the affair too 
seriously, if they suddenly saw themselves in 
danger of getting whipped for meddling with 
such- uncanny matters, what could be more 
natural than for them to seek an avenue of 
escape by declaring that they were bewitched 
and could not help doing as they did ? As to 
these first steps the records leave us in the 
dark, but somewhat such, I suspect, they must 
have been. The next thing would be to ask 
them who bewitched them ; and here the road 
to mischief was thrown open by Mr. Parris 
taking the affair into his own hands with a 
great flourish of trumpets, and making it as 
public as possible. Such was this man's way, 
as different as possible from Cotton Mather's. 



162 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Physicians and clergymen, who came from all 
quarters to see the girls, agreed that they must 
Fh sicians ^^ Suffering from witchcraft. When 
and clergy- Commanded to point out their tor- 
men called in ^ r i i t i • 

mentors, they nrst named the Indian 
hag Tituba, and then Sarah Good and Sarah 
Osburn, two forlorn old women of the village, 
who were not held in high esteem. On the last 
day of February, 1692, these three were ar- 
rested, and the examinations began next day. 
The chief accusations against Sarah Good were 
that after she had spoken angrily to some 
neighbours their cattle sickened and died ; that 
The trial of she thrcw Mary Walcott and other 
Sarah Good children into convulsions; and that 
she tried to persuade Ann Putnam to sign her 
name in a book. It was supposed that such 
signatures were equivalent to a quitclaim deed 
surrendering the signer's soul to the Devil ; 
and his agents, the witches, were supposed to 
go about with that infernal autograph book so- 
liciting signatures. Similar charges were brought 
against the other prisoners. In their presence 
the afflicted children raved and screamed. At 
the indignant denials of the two old white wo- 
men the violence of these paroxysms became 
frightful, but when Tituba confessed that she 
was an adept in witchcraft and had enchanted 
the girls, their symptoms vanished and perfect 
calm ensued. As the result of the examination 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 163 

the three prisoners were sent to the jail in Bos- 
ton to await their trial/ 

The country was now getting alarmed, and 
the girls began to feel their power. Their next 
blow was aimed at victims of far higher sort. 
The wretched Tituba knew human nature well 
enough to consult her own safety by acting as 
king's evidence,^ and In her examination she 
testified that four women of the village tor- 
mented the girls ; two of them were Good and 
Osburn, but the faces of the other two she said 
she could not see. After Tituba had gone to 
prison, the girls were urged to give up the names 
of these other two tormentors. At first they 
refused, but shortly It began to be whispered in 
bated breath that some of the most respected 
and godly persons in the village were leagued 
with Satan In this horrible conspiracy. About 
the middle of March the whole community was 
thunderstruck by the arrest of Martha Corey 
and Rebecca Nurse. Of these two ladies the for- 

^ [For the details of these examinations, see W. E. Wood- 
ward, Records of Salem Witchcraft, Roxbury, Mass., 1864, 
i. 1-49 ; Upham, ii. 4-32 ; Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem 
Village, pp. 57-69.] 

^ [•* The account she since gives of it is, that her master did 
beat her, and otherways abuse her, to make her confess and 
accuse (such as he called) her sister-witches ; and that what- 
soever she said by way of confessing, or accusing others, was 
the effect of such usage. ' ' Robert Calef, More Wonders of 
the Invisible World, Salem reprint, 1823, p. 189.] 



164 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

mer was about sixty years of age, the latter 
more than seventy. As they were addressed not 
Theaccusa- ^^ " Mts.," but as " Goodwife," their 
tion of Mar- position was not exactly aristocratic. 

tha Corey \ . •' 

and Rebecca It was nevertheless most respectable. 
Nurse They were thoroughly well-bred and 

well-educated ladies, full of sweet courtesy and 
simple-hearted kindliness, like the best of 
farmers' wives in New England villages of to- 
day. Martha Corey was third wife of Giles 
Corey, a farmer eighty years old, a man of her- 
culean stature and strength, proud, self-willed, 
and contentious, but frank and noble, with a 
rash, unruly tongue. He had been in many a 
quarrel, and had made enemies. His wife, so far 
Character ^^ ^^ know, had not. She was a wo- 
of Martha man of deep and sincere piety, with as 
*"^^^ clear and sound a head as could be 

found anywhere between Cape Cod and Cape 
Ann. She disbelieved in witchcraft, was inclined 
to regard it as a mere delusion, and had no sym- 
pathy with the excitement which was beginning 
to turn the village topsy-turvy. She did not 
flock with the multitude to see the accusing 
girls, but she reproved her more credulous hus- 
band for giving heed to such tomfoolery, and 
he, with that uncurbed tongue of his, was heard 
to utter indiscreet jests about his good wife's 
scepticism. It was probably this that caused 
her to be selected as a victim. Sceptics must 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 165 

be made to feel the danger of impugning the 
authority of the accusers and the truth of their 
tales. Accordingly Martha Corey, accused by 
little Ann Putnam, was soon in jail awaiting 
trial. 

The next was Rebecca Nurse. She was one 
of three sisters, daughters of William Towne 
of Yarmouth, in England. Her two Rebecca 
sisters, who were arrested soon after ^""^^^ 
her, were Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyse. With 
their husbands they were all persons held in 
highest esteem, but an ancient village feud had 
left a grudge against them in some revengeful 
bosoms. Half a century before there had been 
a fierce dispute between parties from Salem and 
from Topsfield who had settled in the border 
region between the two townships. The dispute 
related to the possession of certain lots of land ; 
it had grown more and more complicated, and it 
had engendered hard feelings between a village 
the Putnams on one side and the ^'^"'^ 
Eastys and Townes on the other. Besides this, 
Rebecca Nurse and her husband had become 
obnoxious to the Putnams and to the Rev. Mr. 
Parris from reasons connected with the church 
dispute. There was evidently a method in the 
madness of the accusing girls. Rebecca Nurse 
was arrested two days after the committal of 
Martha Corey. The appearance of this vener- 
able and venerated lady before the magistrates 



166 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

caused most profound sensation. Her numerous 
children and grandchildren stood high in public 
esteem, her husband was one of the most hon- 
oured persons in the community, herself a 
model of every virtue. As she stood there, deli- 
cate and fragile in figure, with those honest eyes 
that looked one full in the face, that soft gray 
The ex- hair and dainty white muslin kerchief, 

of^RebrcM °^^ marvels what fiend can have pos- 
Nurse sessed those young girls that they did 

not shamefastly hold their peace. In the inter- 
vals of question and answer they went into fits as 
usual. When the magistrate Hathorne became 
visibly affected by the lady's clear and straight- 
forward answers, the relentless Mrs. Putnam 
broke out with a violence dreadful to behold : 
" Did you not bring the black man with you ? 
Did you not bid me tempt God and die ? How 
oft have you eaten and drunk your own dam- 
nation ?" At this outburst, like the horrible 
snarl of a lioness, the poor old lady raised her 
hands toward heaven and cried, " O Lord, help 
me ! " Whereupon all the afflicted girls " were 
grievously vexed." Hathorne thought that their 
spasms were caused by a mysterious influence 
emanating from Goodwife Nurse's lifted hands, 
and so his heart was hardened toward her. Mary 
Walcott cried out that the prisoner was biting 
her, and then showed marks of teeth upon her 
wrist. Thus the abominable scene went on till 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 167 

Rebecca Nurse was remanded to jail to await her 
trial. 

That was on a Thursday morning. The Rev. 
Deodat Lawson, a fine scholar and powerful 
preacher, had arrived in the village a few days 
before, and it was known that he was to preach 
the afternoon sermon familiar in those oeodat 
days as the Thursday lecture. He Dawson 
had scarcely arrived when two or three of 
the girls called upon him and drove him nearly 
out of his wits with their performances. Their 
victory over him was complete, and the result 
was seen in that Thursday lecture, which was 
afterwards printed, and is a literary production 
of great intensity and power. The arrests of 
Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse had de- 
stroyed all confidence, everybody distrusted his 
neighbour, and that impassioned sermon goaded 
the whole community to madness. If the Devil 
could use such " gospel women " for ^, 

or 1 he spread 

his instruments, what safety was there of the de- 
fer anybody ? Arrests went on with in- 
creasing rapidity during the spring and summer, 
until at least 126 persons, of whom we know the 
names and something of the family history, were 
lodged in jail ; and these names do not exhaust 
the number. Among them — to mention only 
such as were executed — we may note that John 
Procter and the venerable George Jacobs had 
each had one of the accusing girls in his family 



168 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

as a domestic servant, and in both cases per- 
sonal malice was visibly at work. In the case 
Cases of per- of Gcorge Jacobs it may also be ob- 
sonai malice served that his own granddaughter, to 
save her own life, confessed herself a witch, and 
testified against him ; afterward she confessed 
this horrible wickedness. Sarah Wildes, Eliza- 
beth How, and Mary Easty were connected 
with the Topsfield affair already mentioned. 
Some, such as Susannah Martin, seem to have 
owed their fate to mere superstition of the low- 
est sort. On a rainy day she walked over a good 
bit of country road without getting her hose or 
skirts muddy, and it was sagely concluded that 
such neatness could only have been attained 
through the aid of the Devil. She was mother 
of the Mabel Martin about whom Whittier 
wrote his beautiful poem, " The Witch's Daugh- 
ter." John Willard incurred his doom for having 
said that it was the accusing girls who were the 
real witches worthy of the gallows, and John 
Procter in a similar spirit had said that by the 
judicious application of a cudgel he could effect 
a prompt and thorough cure for all the little 
hussies. People who ventured such remarks 
took their lives in their hands. 

The boldest and most remarkable of all these 
arrests was that of the Rev. George Burroughs, 
and it was one of the cases in which malice was 
most clearly concerned. This gentleman was 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 169 

graduated at Harvard College in 1670, and had 
been pastor over the church in Salem Village 
from 1680 to 1682. He had left there „, „ 

The Rev. 

because of church feuds, in which George 
he had the misfortune to belong to ""°"^ ^ 
the party hostile to Mrs. Ann Putnam and her 
friends. He was afterwards settled over a 
church in Wells, Maine, and was living there 
quietly in 1692, when about the first of May he 
was arrested and taken to Salem to answer a 
charge of witchcraft. His physical strength was 
alleged against him. Though small in frame he 
could carry a barrel of cider and hold out a heavy 
musket at arm's length, which without infernal 
aid was not likely. On accusations brought by 
the afflicted girls he was thrown into prison.^ 

All the events thus far recounted happened 
under the provisional government of Massa- 
chusetts that followed the overthrow of Andros. 
Now in the middle of May the first royal 
governor, Sir William Phips, arrived in Boston 
with the new charter. Military duties The special 
soon called him far down East, and ^"""""^^'i 
he did not return till October. Before his de- 
parture he appointed a special court of Oyer 
and Terminer to try the witchcraft cases. Wil- 
liam Stoughton was presiding justice, and among 
his colleagues it may suffice to mention John 
Hathorne for his connection with one of the 

^ [Cf. Nevins, Witchcraft i?i Salem Village, pp. 131 fF.] 



170 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

most illustrious names in modern literature, and 
Samuel Sewall, in whose voluminous diary we 
have such a wonderful picture of that old Puri- 
tan society. 

Early in the proceedings this court requested 
the opinion of the ministers in Boston and neigh- 
bouring towns concerning the subject then 
uppermost in all minds. The opinion, written 
by Cotton Mather, one of the youngest of 
the ministers, and subscribed by all the most 
eminent, was calm and judicial. It ran as fol- 
lows : — 

Boston, June 15, 1692. 

1. "The afflicted state of our poor neigh- 
bours that are now suffering by molestations 
The advice of ffom the Invisible World we appre- 
the ministers }^gj^(^ ^q deplorable, that we think 

their condition calls for the utmost help of all 
persons in their several capacities. 

2. " We cannot but with all thankfulness ac- 
knowledge the success which the merciful God 
has given unto the sedulous and assiduous en- 
deavours of our honourable rulers to detect the 
abominable witchcrafts which have been com- 
mitted in the country ; humbly praying that the 
discovery of these mysterious and mischievous 
wickednesses may be perfected. 

3. " We judge that, in the prosecution of 
these and all such witchcrafts there is need of a 
very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 171 

much credulity for things received only upon 
the devil's authority, there be a door opened 
for a long train of miserable consequences, and 
Satan get an advantage over us ; for we should 
not be ignorant of his devices. 

4. " As in complaints upon witchcraft there 
may be matters of inquiry which do not amount 
unto matters of presumption, and there may be 
matters of presumption which yet may not be 
matters of conviction, so it is necessary that 
all proceedings thereabout be managed with 
an exceeding tenderness toward those that may 
be complained of, especially if they have been 
persons formerly of an unblemished reputation. 

5. "When the first inquiry is made into the 
circumstances of such as may lie under the just 
suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that 
there may be admitted as little as possible of 
such noise, company and openness as may too 
hastily expose them that are examined, and that 
there may be nothing used as a test for the trial 
of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may 
be doubted by the people of God, but that the 
directions given by such judicious writers as 
Perkins and Barnard may be observed. 

6. " Presumptions whereupon persons may 
be committed, and much more, convictions 
whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty 
of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more con- 
siderable than barely the accused persons being 



172 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

represented by a spectre unto the afflicted, inas- 
much as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, 
that a demon may by God's permission appear, 
even to ill purposes, in the shape of an inno- 
cent, yea, and a virtuous man. Nor can we 
esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a 
look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible 
evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be 
abused by the devil's legerdemains. 

7. " We know not whether some remarkable 
affronts given the devils, by our disbelieving 
these testimonies whose whole force and strength 
is from them alone, may not put a period unto 
the progress of the dreadful calamity begun 
upon us, in the accusation of so many persons, 
whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the 
great transgression laid to their charge. 

8. " Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly re- 
commend unto the government, the speedy and 
vigorous prosecutions of such as have rendered 
themselves obnoxious, according to the direc- 
tions given in the laws of God and the whole- 
some statutes of the English nation for the de- 
tection of witchcrafts." 

Had these recommendations been followed, 
not a single capital conviction could have been 
secured. Note the warning to the judges against 
relying upon " spectral evidence " or upon the 
physical effects apparently wrought upon the 
accusers by the presence of the accused persons, 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 173 

since evidence of that sort is " frequently lia- 
ble to be abused by the devil's legerdemains." 
Now every one of the victims was convicted 
and hung upon the strength of " spectral evi- 
dence " or the tantrums of the afflicted chil- 
dren, or both combined. And what, pray, was 
" spectral evidence " ? Little Ann Putnam's 
testimony against Mr. Burroughs was an in- 
stance of it. She said that one evening the ap- 
parition of a minister came to her and asked 
her to write her name in the devil's book ; then 
came the forms of two women in spectral 
winding sheets, and looked angrily evidence 
upon the minister and scolded him till he was 
fain to vanish away ; then the women told little 
Ann that they were the ghosts of Mr. Bur- 
roughs's first and second wives whom he had 
murdered, and one of them showed the very 
place under the left arm where he had stabbed 
her. At another time three other persons who 
had recently died appeared to Ann and accused 
Mr. Burroughs of murdering them, and com- 
manded her to tell these things to the magis- 
trates before Mr. Burroughs's face. On such 
evidence was a gentleman and scholar con- 
demned to death.^ So when Mercy Lewis was 
found sobbing and screaming, " Dear Lord, 
receive my soul," " O Lord, let them not kill 

1 [See Cotton Mather's account of Burroughs's case, PFo/i- 
ders of the Invisible World, pp. 120 iF.] 



174 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

me quite," the same Ann Putnam and Abigail 
Williams were sent for to see what was the 
matter, and. both declared that they saw the 
apparitions of Mary Easty and John Willard 
pinching and biting and strangling poor Mercy 
Lewis. On such evidence Mary Easty and 
John Willard were sent to the gallows. With 
such ghost stories did Mary Walcott and 
Elizabeth Hubbard convict Rebecca Nurse of 
three hideous murders, naming persons who had 
died within a few years. When the astounded 
old lady called upon God to witness her inno- 
cence, the girls all went into fits. Nevertheless 
it was hard to obtain a verdict against her. 

An ancestor of mine (my great-grandfather's 
great-great-grandfather). Dr. John Fisk, one 
of the most eminent physicians in the colony, 
thdn lived in Wenham, within four miles of 
Mr. Parris's meeting-house. The family tradi- 
tion has it that he was sceptical about witchcraft. 
His uncle, Thomas Fisk, was a firm believer in 
, . witchcraft, but disapproved of spectral 

acquit Re- evidcncc. He was foreman of the 
jury in the trial of Rebecca Nurse, 
and the verdict was Not Guilty, whereat the 
girls began screaming and rolling about as if all 
Bedlam were let loose. The judges then told 
the jury that they must have overlooked one 
fact, — that in an unguarded moment the pris- 
oner had really confessed her guilt ! It seems 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 175 

that one of the prisoners, Deliverance Hobbs, 
had gone clean daft with fright, confessed her- 
self a witch, and joined the accusing girls as a 
sort of king's evidence. When she was brought 
in to testify against Rebecca Nurse, the old lady 
exclaimed : " What ! do you hnng/ier F She is 
one of us." Of course she meant one of us pris- 
oners, but the atrabilious chief justice was sure 
she meant one of us witches, and he ^^ 

, . i.T\& court 

insisted that the jury should go out sends them 
again. They were not convinced, but 
presently returning to the court-room asked the 
accused to explain what she meant. She made 
no reply, and the jury at length reluctantly 
accepted this silence as a confession of guilt. 
Afterwards she explained that, being somewhat 
" hard of hearing and full of grief," she did not 
realize what was asked of her. She was sen- 
tenced none the less, and after being excom- 
municated from the church with elaborate cere- 
mony was taken to the gallows. Thomas Fisk, 
the juryman who held out longest, made a writ- 
ten statement afterward in which he declared 
that what finally overcame him was her sudden 
silence at the critical moment. The whole 
incident is a pretty clear case of judges brow- 
beating jury.^ 

* [See Calef, New Wonders of the Invisible World, pp. 
209-211 ; Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village, pp. 125- 



176 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

The case of Mary Easty, sister of Rebecca 
Nurse, still further illustrates the fierce persis- 
tency of the accusing girls and the complete- 
The case of Hess of the influence which they exer- 
Mary Easty ciscd ovcr a krgc portion of the com- 
munity. Mary Easty had been arrested scon 
after her sister, but had borne herself so well 
upon examination that after two months' im- 
prisonment she was set free on May i8. Evi- 
dently, the accusing girls made up their minds 
that it would not do to allow this sort of thing. 
One day elapsed, during which they had plenty 
of time to interchange messages with one an- 
other and with Mrs. Putnam. On the 20th, 
at about nine o'clock in the morning, Mercy 
Lewis, being at John Putnam's house, was sud- 
denly seized with the paroxysms above men- 
tioned. Let us observe the rapidity with which 
the desired effects were produced. A neighbour 
named Samuel Abbey was sent in all haste to 
Thomas Putnam's house, to bring little Ann 
to see what was the matter. The distance was 
about a mile. He found Abigail Williams 
with Ann, and brought the two girls back with 
him. On the way, they both exclaimed that 
they saw the apparition of Goody Easty afflict- 
ing Mercy Lewis. When they arrived upon 
the scene, they found Mercy in convulsions, 
apparently choked and strangled, and catching 
for each breath as if it were the last. The two 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 111 

girls exclaimed, " There are Goody Easty and 
John Willard and Mary Whittredge afflicting 
poor Mercy Lewis ! " After this had continued 
for some time, a messenger was sent up to Cap- 
tain Jonathan Walcott's to get his daughter 
Mary. The distance was a mile and a half. She 
arrived about one o'clock, and immediately cried 
out that she saw the spectre of Mary Easty 
standing over the patient and tightening a chain 
about her neck. Presently a messenger was sent 
to the house of Dr. Griggs, three and a half miles 
distant, to get Elizabeth Hubbard, who upon 
her arrival immediately saw Goody Easty, as she 
said, torturing Mercy in a most dreadful man- 
ner. Occasionally Mercy would grow tired, but 
as her convulsions ceased, Elizabeth Hubbard 
would be seized with fits and would ask the 
spectre why she had brought with her a coffin and 
winding-sheet. By eight o'clock in the evening 
the room was full of neighbours, who were so 
impressed by the acting of the girl that some of 
them were afterward ready to testify that they 
saw the winding-sheet, the coffin, and the devil's 
autograph book, and heard words uttered by 
the spectre as well as by the girls. About eight 
o'clock two messengers went to Salem town to 
apply to Justice Hathorne for a warrant for the 
arrest of Mary Easty. The distance was seven 
miles. Hathorne at once issued the warrant, 
which bears the date, May 20. The constable 



178 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

went with it to the house of Isaac Easty, nine 
miles distant, which he seems to have reached 
Mary Easty about midnight. For two days poor 
h°ome'at"^" Mary had enjoyed her freedom, the 
midnight comforts of home, and the pleasure of 
being once more with her husband and children. 
Now at midnight she was aroused from sleep, 
carried off to prison, and put in irons, after which 
the constable returned seven miles to John Put- 
nam's house to witness the performances of 
Mercy Lewis until dawn. Mercy kept scream- 
ing, "What ! Have you brought me the wind- 
ing-sheet, Goodwife Easty ? Well, I had rather 
go into the winding-sheet than set my hand to 
the book." About daybreak she fell asleep, 
but only for a short time ; her paroxysms were 
not finished until Mary Easty had been exam- 
ined before Hathorne and finally committed to 
prison early the next morning. Nothing could 
show more forcibly than the events of that aoth 
of May the extent to which the community was 
dominated by the accusing girls. There is no 
hint that among all the bystanders who watched 
Mercy Lewis in the course of that day and night 
there was one who ventured to express any 
doubt as to the reality of the pretended appari- 
tions. Indeed, the slightest expression of any 
Doubt such doubt would have been fraught 

perilous ^j(.}^ pgj.j| (.Q ^}^g doubter, and it is 

most likely that none but willing believers made 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 179 

bold to attend the scene. It only need be added 
that after Mary Easty was finally committed 
for trial and the news of it reached John Put- 
nam's house, the wretched Mercy Lewis at once 
recovered, thus sealing the belief in the truth 
of her story. From that moment it was a fore- 
gone conclusion that Goody Easty must die, 
slain by the same degrading methods which 
had achieved the destruction of her sister. 

Further details of the trials seem unnecessary ; 
It was but the same old story repeated. In all, 
nineteen persons were hanged, one died of ill- 
treatment in prison, and the old wretch Tituba 
was sold into slavery to pay for her board in 
prison. One often hears people allude to the 
burning of witches in New England; no per- 
sons were ever burned there by white people 
for witchcraft. One cruel punishment, however, 
was inflicted on this occasion for the only time 
in American history. In old English law, in 
cases working corruption of blood, the refusal 
to plead either guilty or not guilty to pdne forte 
an indictment would prevent confisca- ^' '^"''^ 
tion of estates. Hence a prisoner would some- 
times refuse to plead, and in order to overcome 
his obstinacy the law would stretch him on the 
floor and pile weights upon his chest until the 
breath was gradually squeezed from his body. 
This was appropriately called the peine forte et 
dure. Now Giles Corey was arrested for witch- 



180 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

craft in April. His wife, who had been in jail 
since March, was sentenced to death on Septem- 
ber lo, and his own trial came two or three 
days later. The knowledge that thoughtless 
words of his, uttered in jest, had been used 
against his wife had broken his heart, but not 
his will of iron. This man, who in all his eighty 
years had never known the meaning of fear, ex- 
pected nothing but death, and probably wished 
for nothing better, but he had made up his 
mind to leave his property where he pleased, 
and baulk his enemies of at least one gratifica- 
tion. So he stood mute before the court until 
he was taken out and pressed to death. Nothing 
could quell that indomitable spirit. Three days 
later, on September 22, his good wife and seven 
companions were taken to the gallows. One of 
the most busy witch-hunters, ever since the 
The Rev. affair began, had been Rev. Nicholas 
Mr. Noyes Noycs, pastor of the First Church in 
Salem town. Such meagre pity as his soul found 
room for was expressed when he pointed to the 
swinging bodies and exclaimed, " What a sad 
thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hang- 
ing there ! " ^ Some weeks before, this truculent 
Mr. Noyes had been present at the execution 
of Sarah Good, and just before she was turned 
off he said to her, " You are a witch, and you 
know you are ! " The spirited answer of the 

^ [Calef, p. 221 .] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 181 

dying woman is refreshing to read : " You are a 
liar ! I am no more a witch than you are a wiz- 
ard, and if you take away my Hfe, God will give 
you blood to drink ! " ^ 

In strong contrast with this were the dying 
words of that noble Christian woman, Mary 
Easty : — 

" The humble petition of Mary Easty unto 
his Excellency, Sir William Phips, and to the 
Honoured Judge and Bench now sit- ^, 

. ° . J , The petition 

tmg m Judicature in Salem, and the of Mary 
Reverend Ministers, humbly show- ^^^^ 
eth, that, whereas your poor and humble peti- 
tioner, being condemned to die, do humbly beg 
of you to take it in your judicious and pious 
consideration, that your poor and humble pe- 
titioner, knowing my own innocency, blessed 
be the Lord for it ! and seeing plainly the wiles 
and subtilty of my accusers by myself, cannot 
but judge charitably of others that are going 
the same way of myself, if the Lord steps not 
mightily in. I was confined a whole month 
upon the same account that I am condemned 
now for, and then cleared by the afflicted per- 
sons, as some of Your Honours know. And in 
two days' time I was cried out upon [by] them, 
and have been confined, and now am condemned 
to die. The Lord above knows my innocency 
then, and likewise does now, as at the great day 
^ [Calef, p. 209.] 



182 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

will be known to men and angels. I petition not 
to Your Honours for my own life, for I know I 
must die, and my appointed time is set ; but the 
Lord he knows it is that, if it be possible, no 
more innocent blood may be shed, which un- 
doubtedly cannot be avoided in the 

Her warning . ' . ^ . 

way and course you go m. 1 question 
not but Your Honours do to the utmost of your 
powers in the discovery and detecting of witch- 
craft and witches, and would not be guilty of 
innocent blood for the world. But, by my own 
innocency, I know you are in the wrong way. 
The Lord in his infinite mercy direct you in this 
great work, if it be his blessed will that no more 
innocent blood be shed ! I would humbly beg 
of you, that Your Honours would be pleased 
to examine these afflicted persons strictly, and 
keep them apart some time, and likewise to try 
some of these confessing witches ; I being con- 
fident there is several of them has belied them- 
selves and others, as will appear, if not in this 
worldj I am sure in the world to come, whither 
I am now agoing. I question not but you will 
see an alteration of these things. They say my- 
self and others having made a league with the 
Devil, we cannot confess. I know, and the 
Lord knows, as will [shortly] appear, they belie 
me, and so I question not but they do others. 
The Lord above, who is the Searcher of all 
hearts, knows, as I shall answer it at the tri- 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 183 

bunal seat, that I know not the least thing of 
witchcraft ; therefore I cannot, I dare not, belie 
my own soul. I beg Your Honours not to deny 
this my humble petition from a poor, dying, 
innocent person. And I question not but the 
Lord will give a blessing to your endeavours." ^ 
The execution of Mary Easty, Martha Corey, 
and their six companions was the last scene in 
the tragedy. Further trials were held, but there 
were no more executions, and early in 1693 all 
the prisoners were set free. As to the ^ ^^ 

i _ . Sudden col- 

cause of this sudden collapse m the lapse of the 
frenzy we may say that it came, as such 
collapses always come, when humanity has been 
outraged more than it will bear. Why did the 
guillotine stop its work in 1794 just after the 
fall of Robespierre ? The men who overthrew 
him were not much better than himself, but the 
state of things had come to be unendurable. 
Such periods of furious excitement inevitably 
lead up to a moment of reaction, and the sudden- 
ness and completeness of the reaction is apt to 
be proportionate to the intensity and ferocity 
of the excitement. The reign of terror in Salem 
Village was due to a temporary destruction 
of confidence ; everybody became afraid of his 
neighbours, and there is nothing so pitiless as 

^ [Upham, ii. 328, 329 ; Calef, pp. 219, 220. There are 
slight differences in the two texts. The two insertions in 
brackets are from Calef s text.] 



184 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

fear. But many long ages of social discipline 
Reaction foi- ^^^^^ upon mutual Confidence, without 



lows the in- which human society could not exist, 

tense strain j , , 

nave made that sentiment so strong 
and tough that it cannot be suppressed for more 
than a short time. The feeling with which people 
endured the sight of Rebecca Nurse and George 
Burroughs and Martha Corey hanged like com- 
mon felons was a feeling of tension that must 
soon give way. The accusing girls did not ap- 
preciate this point ; they became overweeningly 
bold and aimed too high. Increase Mather, 
President of Harvard College, had expressed his 
disapproval of the methods of the court, and a 
member of his family was accused. Then the 
girls cried out against Rev. Samuel Willard, 
pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, a 
man of as much eminence in his day as the late 
The accusers Phillips Brooks. They even assailed 
aim too high Lady Phips, the governor's wife, who 
condemned their proceedings and expressed 
sympathy with the victims. In these instances 
the girls struck too high. The same Stoughton 
and Hathorne, who could take for granted the 
guilt of Martha Corey, could entertain no such 
thoughts about Mr. Willard, and when some 
of the girls mentioned his name they were 
sharply rebuked and told to hold their tongues. 
Their final and most fatal mistake was made in 
October, when they accused Mrs. Hale, wife of 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 185 

the minister in Beverly, a lady known through- 
out the colony for her noble Christian character. 
The vile accusation opened the eyes of her hus- 
band, who had been active in the pursuit of the 
witches. He instantly faced about, began to op- 
pose the whole prosecution, and confessed that 
he had been deceived. This was a fatal blow to 
the witch-hunters, and the effect was presently 
enhanced when some high-spirited persons in 
Andover, on being accused of witch- Accusers 

_ , , ^ . . . threatened 

craft, retorted by brmgmg an action ^kh a suit 
for defamation of character with heavy ^°' damages 
damages. This marked the end of the panic, 
and from that time people began to be quick in 
throwing off the whole witchcraft delusion. 

Another circumstance is worthy of notice in 
this connection. About three weeks after the 
execution of Martha Corey and her companions 
the General Court of Massachusetts was assem- 
bled at Boston. It was different from any Gen- 
eral Court that had sat before, for it was the 
first Court elected under the new charter. Un- 
der the old charter none but church members 
could either serve as representatives or vote for 
representatives.^ Under the new charter such 
restrictions were abolished and a property quali- 
fication was substituted for them. The effect 

^ [This was modified in 1664, in response to the king's 
command, so as to extend the suffrage to all respectable citi- 
zens of orthodox opinions.] 



186 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

was not only greatly to widen the suffrage, but 
The Court also to sccukrize it. One of the first 
of Oyer and ^^jg of the new legislature was to abol- 

1 ermmer _ _ o 

abolished ish the spccial court of Oyer and Ter- 
miner under which the witchcraft trials had been 
held, and to establish a superior court. When 
the new court met in January, the change was 
visible. The grand jury began by throwing out 
more than half of the indictments.^ In the mean- 
time a tract published by Increase Mather, en- 
titled " Cases of Conscience,"^ had done much 
to cast discredit upon spectral evidence. As for 
Cotton Cotton Mather, he had not been pre- 

Mather ggj^^ ^^ ^j-jy gf ^]^q witch trials, nor 

do we know of any comment which he made 
upon them at the time, except that Calef tells 
us that at the execution of Mr. Burroughs young 
Mather was present on horseback, having, per- 
haps, ridden down from Boston for the occasion. 
Calef says the spectators were so impressed with 
Burroughs's innocence of demeanour that Cot- 
ton Mather felt it necessary to tell them that the 
devil might take on the semblance of a saint or 
an angel ; and that thereupon, the people being 
appeased, the executions went on. Now Calef 
has so often been convicted of inaccuracy that 

^ [See Sir William Phips's report to the home government 
of his policy in regard to the troubles. Palfrey, iv. 112, 113.] 

2 [This occupies pp. 220-291 of the London reprint of 
the fVofiders of the Invisible World.'^ 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 187 

his statement here is open to suspicion. The 
argument that Satan might assume the appear- 
ance of some person of known innocence or ex- 
cellence was a favourite one with Cotton Mather 
when he was inveighing against spectral evi- 
dence. As applied to the alleged testimony of 
the two deceased wives of Mr. Burroughs, it 
had a peculiarly Matherian meaning ; it meant 
that instead of the first and second Mrs. Bur- 
roughs, it was the devil who was talking to little 
Ann Putnam, so that therefore the unfortunate 
minister was condemned upon the devil's evi- 
dence. As ordinarily understood, in ^ , 
the sense that Mr. Burroughs himself of Mather's 
was an impersonation of the devil, the ^''"'^ 
remark ascribed by Calef to Mather does not 
fit in with his habits of expression and has no 
point. Apart from this misconstruction, there 
is nothing in the records to set off" against the 
weighty evidence of Mather's own rules of pro- 
cedure, which were in themselves the strongest 
condemnation the court could have had. Long- 
fellow's picture of Mather in his tragedy of 
Giles Corey seems absolutely justified, except 
in one trifling particular, when he makes him say 
to Mary Walcott, " Accept an old man's bless- 
ing," which from a spruce young minister of 
twenty-nine is, no doubt, a slight anachronism. 
The reign of terror we have been describing 
was the expiring paroxysm of the witchcraft 



188 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

delusion. In the energy of the reaction scep- 
tics declared themselves in all quarters. How 
Judge Sew- Judge Sewall, only five years after- 
aii's public ward, got up in the Old South 

acknowledg- „, , . , ,. , i i j 

ment of Lhurch and publicly acknowledged 
wrong j^jg shame and repentance is known 

to every one. Not all the court were so open 
to conviction. Stoughton, who was at best 
a narrow-minded and cross-grained creature, 
maintained to his dying day that he had done 
nothing to be sorry for. Of the wretched chil- 
dren, one of the most active, Ann 

Ann Put- T-» r r 3 

nam's con- Putnam, fourtcen years afterward, 
^'^'°" humbled herself before the village 

church at Salem and declared that she had 
been instrumental, with others, in bringing 
upon the land the guilt of innocent blood ; 
" though what was said or done by me against 
any person, I can truly and uprightly say be- 
fore God and man, I did it not out of any 
anger, malice, or ill-will to any person, for I 
had no such thing against one of them, but 
what I did was ignorantly, being deluded of 
Satan. And particularly as I was a chief in- 
strument of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her 
two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust and to 
be humbled for it, in that I was a cause, with 
others, of so sad a calamity to them and their 
famiHes." ^ 

* [Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village, p. 250.] 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 189 

I think we should accept this solemn dis- 
claimer of malice as sufficient evidence that in 
1706 the poor girl did not believe herself to 
have been actuated by unworthy motives in 
1692. By declaring herself to have been de- 
luded by Satan she meant that when she accused 
Rebecca Nurse and George Burroughs and 
others she said what she believed to be true at 
the time, but had since learned to reject as false. 
In other words, when a little girl of twelve, she 
believed that she had seen the ghosts of Mr. 
Burroughs's wives and other persons who said 
that they had been murdered, but as a young 
woman of six and twenty she looked back upon 
this as a delusion, and charged it to Satan. This 
brings us to the question, Are we justified in 
accepting this explanation of Ann Put- Were the 
nam as to her own conduct, and shall ^j^Tor 
we suppose the case to have been sub- shamming ? 
stantially the same with the other girls ? Did 
they really have visions of ghosts and black 
men and yellow birds and devil's autograph 
books, or was it all a lie ? Did they really fall 
into convulsions, and fancy themselves pricked 
with pins, and cut and bitten, or was all that put 
on for effect? In his elaborate history Mr. Up- 
ham seems to incline toward the latter view. 
Certainly the fits came and went, and the ghost 
stories were told, as if to order, and certainly 
there was methodical cooperation of some sort. 



190 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

if not collusion, between most if not all the 
Evidences of gifls, Ettd Ann Putnam's mother and 
collusion ^j^g minister Parris. There can be no 
doubt as to such cooperation. They all worked 
together as harmoniously and relentlessly as the 
cog-wheels in a machine. Of the victims from 
Salem Village and the towns near by, a large 
majority were persons against whom either the 
Putnam family, or the minister, or some of the 
afflicted girls, are known to have entertained a 
grudge ; others were sceptics whose scoffing re- 
marks were liable to weaken the authority of the 
accusers. When we have eliminated these two 
classes, very few names are left. Like the tracks 
of various beasts which Master Reynard saw, 
all pointing toward the lion's cave and none 
coming out from it, the traces of evidence here 
all point in the same direction, — all point 
toward methodical cooperation between the 
accusers. 

The question remains, however, was this co- 
operation a case of conscious and deliberate con- 
spiracy, or must we seek some other explana- 
tion ? The theory of conspiracy, toward which 
Mr. Upham seems inclined, offers us a spectacle 
of astounding wickedness. We are asked to 
believe that a minister of the gospel and a lady 
of high position in the community make up 
their minds to destroy their enemies, and for 
that purpose employ young girls in their fami- 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 191 

lies to pretend illness and bring false accusations 
conceived and supported with all the ^^^ ^j^^^^ 
skill of trained actresses ! Such a con- a deliberate 
spiracy is much too diabolical and '^°"^P"'^'^y • 
altogether too elaborate for belief. Moreover, 
it leaves out of account the most important fact 
in the whole case, — the fact that the accusers, 
like nearly all the rest of the community, un- 
questionably believed in the reality of witchcraft. 
It will not do to invest those poor girls with 
a nineteenth century consciousness. The same 
delusion that conquered learned magistrates led 
them also astray. Still more, they were doubt- 
less in a morbid mental condition. A „ ^ . 

Contagion 

large part of Indian medicine consists of hysterical 

/- I • 1 , emotion 

or convulsive muscular movements, 
twitching, capering, and groaning, accompanied 
by an awestruck belief in the presence of some 
supernatural agency. Such convulsive move- 
ments tend to prolong themselves, to recur with 
spasmodic violence, and they are in a high de- 
gree contagious. Abundant instances may be 
found among the experiences of revival meet- 
ings, where multitudes of ignorant minds are 
at work after much the same fashion as the 
Indian's, though in connection with different 
religious symbols. This kind of hysterical ex- 
citement selects for its victims impressionable 
people with sensitive nerves ; it attacks children 
more frequently than adults, and women more 



192 iVJE^T^ FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

frequently than men ; vivacious and quickly 
Ps choio responsive temperaments are more 
of haiiucina- subjcct to it than those that are phleg- 
matic and slow. Under suitable cir- 
cumstances it easily develops into a thoroughly 
morbid mental state, in which convulsive move- 
ments are attended by partial and temporary 
hallucinations ; the nervous impressions be- 
come so vivid that ideas are clothed with ex- 
ternality and mistaken for realities. Such are 
the characteristics of hysteria and allied forms 
of mental disturbance, which differ from true 
insanity in being merely temporary and func- 
tional, and not connected with any organic 
lesion. They are very striking phenomena, and 
often very shocking, but not more mysterious 
than many other phases of abnormal mental 
life. It was not strange that an ignorant age 
should have called them the result of witchcraft ; 
that same age, we must remember, regarded 
ordinary insanity as the direct work of the 
devil. 

Applying these considerations to the case of 
the Salem girls, we may suppose that the min- 
ister's West Indian servants began by talking 
Indian medicine and teaching its tricks to his 
daughter and niece ; then the girls of their ac- 
quaintance would naturally become interested, 
and would seek to relieve the monotony of the 
winter evenings by taking part in the perform- 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 193 

ances. Their first motives are most likely to 
have been playful, but there was prob- piaying 
ably a half-shuddering sense of wick- "^'^^ '^"'^ 
edness, a slight aroma of brimstone, about the 
affair, which may have made it the more attrac- 
tive. I feel sure that sooner or later some of 
those girls would find themselves losing control 
over their spasms, and thus, getting more than 
they had bargained for, would deem themselves 
bewitched by Tituba and John Indian. But, 
especially if they found themselves taken to task 
by their parents, the dread of punishment — 
perhaps of church discipline, wherein Parris was 
notably severe — would be sure to make them 
blame the Indians in order to screen themselves. 
If Cotton Mather's methods had now been fol- 
lowed, the affair would have been hushed, and 
the girls isolated from each other would have 
been subjected to quiet and sooth- The evils of 
ing treatment ; and thus no doubt it P^^^'^'^y !" 

<-> the examma- 

would all have ended. But when Par- tions 
ris made the affair as public as possible, when 
learned doctors of divinity and medicine came 
and watched those girls, and declared them be- 
witched, what more was needed to convince 
their young minds that they were really in that 
dreadful plight ? Such a belief must of course 
have added to their hysterical condition. Nat- 
urally they accused Tituba, and as for the two 
old women. Good and Osburn, very likely some 



194 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of the girls may really have been afraid of them 
as evil-eyed or otherwise uncanny. 

For the rest of the story a guiding influence 
is needed, and I think we may find it in Mrs. 
Putnam. She was one of the Carrs of Salis- 
bury, a family which for several generations had 
been known as extremely nervous and excit- 
Expianation ^ble. There had been cases of in- 
of Mrs. Put- sanity among her near relatives. The 
nam s part (Jeaths of somc of her own children 
and of a beloved sister, with other distressing 
events, had clouded her mind. She had once 
been the most sparkling and brilliant of wo- 
men, but was sinking into melancholia at the 
time when the first stories of witchcraft came 
from the parsonage and she learned that her 
little daughter Ann, a precocious and imagina- 
tive child, was one of the afflicted. Mrs. Put- 
nam and her husband were both firm believers 
in witchcraft. I do not think it strange that 
her diseased mind should have conjured up 
horrible fancies about Goodwife Nurse, mem- 
ber of a family which she probably hated all the 
more bitterly for the high esteem in which it 
was generally held. Mrs. Putnam fell into vio- 
lent hysterical fits like her daughter, and their 
bright and active servant Mercy Lewis was af- 
flicted likewise. These three, with the min- 
ister's niece Abigail Williams and her friend 
Mary Walcott, were the most aggressive and 



WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 195 

driving agents in the whole tragedy. I presume 
Mrs. Putnam may have exercised she exercised 
something like what it is now fashion- ^^^"over'th"' 
able to call hypnotic influence over the children 
young girls. She honestly believed that witches 
were hurting them all, and she naturally sus- 
pected foes rather than friends. I see no good 
reason for doubting that she fully believed her 
own ghost stories, or that the children believed 
theirs. In their exalted state of mind they could 
not distinguish between what they really saw 
and what they vividly fancied. It was analogous 
to what often occurs in delirium. 

Such an explanation of the witchcraft in 
Salem Village accounts for the facts much bet- 
ter than any such violent supposition as that 
of conscious conspiracy. Our fit attitude of 
mind toward it is pity for all concerned, yet the 
feelings of horror and disgust are quite legiti- 
mate, for the course of the affair was practically 
the same as if it had been shaped by deliberate 
and conscious malice. It is on the whole the 
most gruesome episode in American history, 
and it sheds back a lurid light upon the long 
tale of witchcraft in the past. Few instances of 
the delusion have attracted so much attention 
as this at Salem, and few have had the details 
so fully and minutely preserved. It was the 
last witch epidemic recorded in the history 
of fully civilized nations. It occurred among 



196 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

people of our own sort, and the sixth generation, 
born since it happened, has not yet passed 
away. It came just as the superstition which 
produced it was about to die out from the 
thoughts of educated men, and there is no 
monument more conspicuous than the Salem 
Witchcraft to mark the remote and fast reced- 
ing side of the gulf which the human mind has 
traversed in these two centuries. For these 
reasons it looms up in our memory, and is 
sometimes alluded to as if it were in some way 
a singular or exceptional instance of supersti- 
tion. Yet in Europe, only a few years earlier, 
the hanging of nineteen persons for witchcraft 
in a single village and in the course of a single 
summer would have called forth no special 
comment. The case of Salem Village may help 
us in the attempt to form some dim conception 
of the stupendous wickedness that must have 
been wrought by the terrible delusion in the 
The case of ^ays of its Stalwart prime, when vic- 
Saiem vii- fims by the hundred were burned at 

lage helps one , , ^-^j , ^ . , . 

to realize the thc stakc. We Can but ramtly im- 
terrorsofthe ^gine what must have been the de- 

witchcrart c 

delusion in struction of Confidence, the breaking 
t e past ^^ ^j^^ dearest ties, the madness, the 

reign of savage terror ; and we cannot be too 
grateful that the gaunt spectre which stalked so 
long over the fairest parts of earth has at length 
been exorcised forever ! 



VI 
THE GREAT AWAKENING 

ONE of the effects of the witchcraft epi- 
demic at Salem was to cast discredit 
upon the clergy, who still represented 
the old theocratic ideal which had founded the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is true, 
that with regard to the prosecutions of witches, 
the more eminent among the clergy had behaved 
with much wisdom and discretion ; nevertheless, 
the new public opinion, receiving its The reaction 
tone far more from laymen than for- ^°tdicrrft 
merly, was inclined to charge this whole delusion 
business of diabolism to the account of the men 
who represented an old and discredited state of 
things. With regard to the reality of witchcraft, 
Cotton Mather had been foremost among the 
defenders of the belief, and now that there came 
a sudden and violent reaction against the super- 
stition, it made little difference to people that 
he had been remarkably discreet and temperate 
in his handling of the matter ; it was enough 
that he had been a believer and prominent ad- 
vocate. To some extent Cotton Mather was 
made the chief butt of popular resentment be- 



198 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

cause he and his father especially typified the 
old theocratic state of things. 

Now the old Puritan theocracy in the early 
days when Winthrop and Cotton led it had 
framed for itself an ideal of society that was at 
least lofty and noble, although from the first 
there were settlers who dissented from it. The 
defensive wall behind which the theocracy 
sought to shelter itself from all hostile attack 
was the restriction of the rights to vote and 
hold ofiice to members of the Congregational 
churches in full communion. One of the first 
effects of this policy was to drive away from 
Massachusetts the men who founded Con- 
necticut^ and some of those who founded 
Rhode Island; but after such depletions there 
was a considerable number left in Massachusetts 
who were disfranchised, and who would have 
been glad in many respects to secularize the 
government. In the second period of the theo- 
Riseofsecu- cracy, with Kndicott, Rellingham, and 
lo^S'ttt" Norton at the head, the opposition 
cacy had become verv strong ; indeed, it 

numbered a majority of the population. When 
the Quakers arrived upon the scene, determined 
to stay in the Commonwealth at all hazards 
and thus destroy its character as a united body 
of believers, there is little doubt that a majority 

^ [Fiske, T/ie Bcgitinings of Nezv England, pp. 123, 
249.] 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 199 

of the people sympathized with them.^ The 
violent policy pursued by magistrates and min- 
isters soon failed because the force of a new and 
growing public opinion was arrayed against it. 
During the reign of Charles II. the course of 
the theocracy, in spite of its narrowness and ar- 
rogance, commands our admiration for the bold- 
ness with which it resisted all attempts of the 
British government to interfere with the local 
administration of the colony. There can be no 
doubt that the Massachusetts theocracy then 
made a splendid fight for the principles of po- 
litical freedom, so far as they concerned the re- 
lation between a colonial and imperial govern- 
ment. At the same time, the theocracy at home 
was felt as more and more oppressive. By the 
time of the death of Charles II. it was reckoned 
that four fifths of the adult males in Massachu- 
setts were disfranchised because of inability to 
participate in the Lord's Supper. It is not 
strange, therefore, that between the one fifth who 
ruled, and the four fifths who had no voice in 
ruling, there should have been marked differ- 
ences of policy accompanied with a good deal 
of ill-feeling. 

^ [On the Quakers in Massachusetts, cf. Fiske, The Be- 
ginnings of New England, pp. 179 fF. ; Doyle, The English 
in America, The Puritan Colonies, ii. 126 fF. ; and R. P. 
Hallowell, The (Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts. ~\ 



200 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

In view of such difficulties which began to be 
foreseen soon after 1650, an opinion grew up 
that all baptized persons of upright and deco- 
rous lives ought to be considered, for practical 
purposes, as members of the church, and there- 
fore entitled to the exercise of political rights, 
even though unqualified for participation in 
the Lord's Supper. This theory, according to 
which a person might be a halfway member of 
the church, — member enough for 

The Half- ' .° . 

way Gov- political purposcs, but not for reli- 
^"^""^ gious, — was known at the time as the 

"Halfway Covenant."^ It formed the occasion 
■ for prolonged and bitter controversy, in which 
prominent clergymen took opposite sides. It 
was contended by some that its natural ten- 
dency would be toward the spiritual demorali- 
zation of the church, while others denied that 
such would be its practical effect, and pointed 
to the lamentable severance between ecclesias- 
tics and laymen as a much greater evil. In the 

^ [Cf. Dexter, Co7igregationart5m as seen in its Litera- 
ture, pp. 467 iF. ; Walker, History of Congregational Churches, 
pp. 170 fF. ; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, \. 296 fF. ; 
Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 487 fF. ; Doyle, The 
English in America, The Puritan Colonies, ii. 96 ; Bancroft, 
History of the United States (author's last revision), i. 360 ; 
Massachusetts Colonial Records, vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 1 1 7 and 
164. Dr. Dexter, p. 476, gives two specimen " Halfway 
Covenants."] 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 201 

First Church of Boston, the Halfway Covenant 
was decisively condemned, and the Rev. John 
Davenport, a theocrat of extreme type, was 
called from New Haven to be its pastor. Then 
the minority in the church, who approved of the 
Halfway Covenant, seceded in 1669 and formed 
themselves into a new society known The south 
as the South Church, further defined church 
in later days as the " Old South." The wooden 
meeting-house of this society, which occupied 
the spot of land upon which its brick successor 
still stands to-day, was a favourite place for meet- 
ings which dealt with political questions, and in 
a certain sense its founding may be regarded as 
a kind of political safety valve for the agitation 
in Massachusetts.^ 

In spite of such palliatives, however, the op- 
position grew, and it was apt to take the form* 
of political Toryism, or a disposition to uphold 
the British government in its contests with the 
theocracy. From this point of view, 
we may regard Joseph Dudley and don to the 
his friends as the founders of New L^y'XLn- 
England Toryism. Boston was be- dationof 

■I r • ^ Toryism 

commg a place 01 some commercial 

note, sustaining business relations with various 

parts of the world. Among its residents were 

^ [Mr. Fiske writes a little more fully of this movement 
in The Beginnings of New England, pp. 314 fF.] 



202 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

members of the Church of England, who de- 
sired a place of worship for themselves, and 
naturally felt indignant that nothing of the sort 
was allowed to be provided. 

Such was the state of affairs when the old 
charter was rescinded, and Sir Edmund Andros 
was sent by James II. to govern New England 
according to his own sweet will, without any 
constitutional checks or limitations. The rule 
of Andros produced for the moment something 
approaching to unanimity of opposition, for 
there were few men in Massachusetts ready to 
surrender the charter of their liberties, although 
there were many who would be glad to see it 
modified. After the well-planned and fortunate 
insurrection which expelled Andros, the repre- 
sentatives of the theocracy, and in particular 
Increase Mather, made every effort to obtain 
from William III. a charter essentially similar 
to the old one. In this they were completely 
The new defeated. The new charter, with its 
mIssIcHu- substitution of a royal governor for a 
setts governor elected by church members, 

dealt a serious blow at the independence of the 
Commonwealth. At the same time the wide 
extension of the suffrage, and its limitation only 
by a property qualification, was equivalent to the 
death-blow of the old theocracy. It was a revo- 
lution, the severity of which for the clergy was 
but slightly disguised by the appointment of 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 203 

Mather's candidate. Sir William Phips, to be 
the first royal governor.^ 

Five years after the new charter had gone 
into operation, an event occurred which illus- 
trated most strikingly the decline in the power 
of the clergy. Increase Mather had been for 
many years minister of the North Church in 
Boston, and in 1685 was appointed president of 
Harvard, but continued to live in Boston. Dur- 
ing the Andros interval he was occupied in pro- 
tecting the interests of the colony in London. 
Thus the management of affairs at Harvard 
was left chiefly in the hands of William Brattle 
and John Leverett, who both belonged to the 
extreme liberal wing of the clergy ; for the influ- 
ences which were raising up a crop of freethink- 
ers for the eighteenth century in England were 
not entirely without effect in the English colo- 
nies. Under the influence of Brattle and Lev- 
erett, grew up Benjamin Colman, who took his 
master's degree at Harvard in 1695, ^^^ then 
went to England, where he was settled over a 
congregation at Bath. The group of liberals in 
Boston was steadily increasing in number, and 
one of their leaders was Thomas Brattle, trea- 
surer of Harvard, a wealthy merchant whose 
leisure hours were more or less devoted to 
astronomy and physics. He was the author of 
several papers on lunar eclipses and of an able 
1 [On the new charter, see Palfrey, iv. 76.] 



204 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

criticism of the witchcraft delusion. In 1698 
Thomas Brattle conveyed to a body of trustees 
The Brattle the land upon which a new meeting- 
^unded house was to be built, and in the fol- 

1698 lowing year an invitation was sent to 

Benjamin Colman to become the pastor of the 
new Brattle Church. Upon Colman's arrival in 
Boston, his church issued a manifesto in which 
two startling novelties were announced. It had 
been the custom to require from all candidates 
for admission to the Lord's Supper not only a 
general subscription to the Westminster creed, 
but also a relation of personal experiences, which 
in order to insure their admission must be 
satisfactory to the presiding clergy. The new 
church announced that it would dispense with 
such personal experiences, requiring merely a 
Relaxation formal subscHption to the Westmin- 

of conditions . jt^LJIU j. 

of member- stcr crccd. 1 1 had also bccn customary 
ship to confine the choice of a minister to 

the male communicants alone ; the new church 
proposed to allow all members of the congre- 
gation who contributed money toward the sup- 
port of the church to have votes in the election 
of ministers. It is hardly necessary to point out 
the far-reaching character of these provisions in 
allowing a wholesome opportunity for variations 
in individual opinion to creep into the church. 
A body of ministers elected only by communi- 
cants, and able to exclude all communicants save 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 205 

such as could satisfy them in a relation of per- 
sonal experiences, was naturally able to exert a 
very powerful influence in repressing individual 
divergences. The Mathers were quite right in 
thinking that the Brattles and their friends 
aimed a blow at the vitals of the church. On 
the 5th of January, J^^, Cotton Mather writes 
in his diary : " I see Satan beginning a terrible 
shake in the churches of New England, and 
the innovators that have set up a new church 
in Boston (a new one, indeed!) have ^ 

V ' _ '' Cotton 

made a day of temptation among us. Mather's 
The men are ignorant, arrogant, ob- ^""^ 
stinate, and full of malice and slander, and they 
fill the land with lies. . . . Wherefore I set 
apart this day again for prayer in my study, to 
cry mightily unto God."^ 

It was indeed probable that should the new 
Brattle Church succeed in obtaining recognition 
as a Congregational church in good standing, 
it would create a precedent for latitudinarianism 
which might be pushed to almost any extent, 
and yet there was no available method of pre- 
venting it. Under the old theocracy, that clause 
of the Cambridge Platform would have been suf- 
ficient which enjoined it upon the magistrates to 
suppress heresy. Had the old state of things 
continued in 1699, there can be little doubt 
that Leverett, Colman, and the two Brattles 

* [See Quincy's Hist, of Harvard University, i. 487.] 



206 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

would either have been expelled from the 
Commonwealth or heavily fined, as had been 
The theo- the case with William Vassall, Robert 
undJrS^"' Child, and their companions. But the 
new charter Cambridge Platform had fallen with 
the fall of the old charter; and although Increase 
Mather had endeavoured to obtain a provision 
substantially replacing it, King William, who was 
no friend to theocracies, would not hear of such 
a thing. The Mathers were therefore reduced to 
the expedient of declining to exchange pulpits 
with the new pastor ; this refusal of ecclesiasti- 
„ cal courtesies was all that was left for 

The new 

church finally them, and from the theocratic point 
recognize ^^ vicw onc cannot wonder if they 
thought that in some essential respects the world 
was coming to an end. In the course of the 
following year a kind of peace was patched up 
between the party of the Brattles and that of 
the Mathers, and blessings were interchanged ; 
but as we look back upon the affair we can see 
that the theocracy had received a fatal blow. 

The increasing power of the liberals was dis- 
played about the same time in what went on 
at Harvard College. The charter of 1650, by 
which the Company of Massachusetts Bay had 
incorporated that institution, was generally re- 
garded as having lost its validity when the char- 
ter of the company was repealed ; and although 
things went on about as usual at the college, it 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 207 

was felt that things stood upon a precarious foot- 
ing. But to obtain a new charter which would 
be satisfactory to the theocrats was no The effort to 
easy matter, for any such charter must fhar^g^for 
either exclude or allow the exclusion Harvard 
from the teaching body of all persons not in 
communion with the Congregational church, 
and King William would never consent to the 
exclusion of Episcopalians. It will be remem- 
bered that one of the chief sources of conten- 
tion between Charles II. and the government of 
Boston had been the repressive policy pursued 
by the latter toward members of the Church of 
England. King William felt, both as an advo- 
cate of liberalism and as the representative of 
imperial authority, that no concessions could 
be allowed to the theocracy on this point. In 
1699 the party of the Mathers introduced a bill 
into the General Court, providing for a reli- 
gious test in Harvard College, the substance 
of which was, " that in the charter for the col- 
lege, our holy religion may be secured to us 
and unto our posterity, by a provision that no 
person shall be chosen president or fellow of the 
college, but such as declare their adherence unto 
the principles of reformation which were es- 
poused and intended by those who first settled 
the country . . . and have hitherto been the 
general professions of New England." This 
bill passed both houses, but, fortunately, was 



208 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

vetoed by the royal governor. Lord Bellomont. 
Meanwhile, the discontent in Cambridge aris- 
Governor ^"g from President Mather's non-re- 
Beiiomont sidence had been increasing. That 
act for col- worthy divine seems to have felt 
lege officers j^iorc attachment to his church in Bos- 
ton than toward the college/ After a while the 
Rev. Samuel Willard of the Old South was ap- 
pointed vice-president of the college, but he, 
too, seems to have preferred the duties of pastor 
to those of administering a college, and his ab- 
senteeism attracted comment as well as Mather's. 
I think, however, that the true explanation of 
Mather's difficulty with the college lies deeper. 
„. ry. There can be no doubt that between 

Rise or liber- 
alism in the 1685 and 1700 the intellectual atmos- 

'^° ^^'^ phere of the college was rapidly be- 

coming more and more liberal. Leverett and 
the Brattles were the ruling spirits, and the 
events of each passing year made Mather more 
and more uncongenial to them ; whereas, Wil- 
lard was both in character and in turn of thought 
more to their mind. It is not strange, there- 
fore, that we find Mather's non-residence com- 
plained of, while the same fault in Willard is 
but lightly noticed. After a while Mather sig- 
nified that if the General Court were not satis- 
fied with his conduct, it might perhaps be well 
for them to choose another president. To his 
^ [Sevvall's Diary, i. 493.] 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 209 

intense chagrin, he was taken at his word, and 
in September, 1701, the dignity and President 
duties of the president were trans- ^a^heT 
ferred to Willard, who, however, re- displaced 
tained the title of vice-president, thus somewhat 
softening the blow. A couple of entries in Judge 
Sewall's diary are rather amusing in this connec- 
tion. Sewall was a member of the court which 
had just wrought this change in the presidency. 
The first entry is : " Mr. Cotton Mather came 
to Mr. Wilkins's shop, and there talked very 
sharply against me as if I had used his father 
worse than a neger ; spake so loud that people 
in the street might hear him. ... I had read 
in the morning Mr. Dod's saying: Sanctified 
afflictions are good promotions. I found it 
now a cordial." Then follows a memorandum : 
" Ocf 9. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch 
of very good venison ; I hope in that I did not 
treat him as a negro." ^ As for Cotton Mather, 
he hoped to be chosen president of ^ 

f , 1 _ Cotton 

Harvard when Willard should die or Mather's 
resign, but he did not read correctly '" '^"^'°" 
the signs of the times, nor did he play his part 
with skill ; for he chose the part of sulking, and 
went so long without attending the meetings of 
the corporation, of which he was a member, that 
people spoke of his having abdicated his office.^ 

^ [Sewall's Diary, ii. 43, October 20, 1701.] 

^ [See Quincy's Hist, of Harvard Utiiversity, i. 151.] 



210 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

In 170CI Joseph Dudley, who had been in Eng- 
land ever since the Andros days and had just 
been appointed to succeed Lord Bellomont as 
governor of Massachusetts, arrived in Boston. 
Governor Thc enmity between Dudley and the 
Dudley Mathers was of long standing, and 

may be said to have had its origin in the very 
roots of things. Between the representatives of 
the old theocracy and the subtle founder of 
Toryism there could be no love lost at any time ; 
on the other hand, by that very law of selection 
which was apt to bring together revolters against 
the theocracy, whether for religious or political 
reasons, a strong alliance grew up between Dud- 
ley and Leverett. When Willard died, in Sep- 
tember, 1707, the corporation at once chose 
Leverett as his successor. At his instigation 
a resolution was introduced into the General 
_^ Court declaring that the charter of 

The new .... - 

charter for 1650 was Still HI forcc ; or rather, cn- 
s"bs7anda?re- actlng a chartcr whlch in its essential 
enactment of provisions was identical with the old 

that of 1650 ^ ,-^. . . . 

one. 1 his charter was at once signed 
by Governor Dudley. The English Privy Coun- 
cil might still have overturned it, but they 
never did, so after the vicissitudes of the great 
revolution through which Massachusetts had 
passed. Harvard College started quietly upon 
a new chapter in her career, with her hands tied 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 211 

as little as possible by hampering statutes or 
traditions. 

While these things were going on in Massa- 
chusetts, affairs were taking a somewhat dif- 
ferent turn in Connecticut. The confederacy 
of river towns which gave birth to the state of 
Connecticut had represented a more liberal 
principle than that upon which Massachusetts 
was founded. The wholesale migration which 
carried the people of Dorchester, Cambridge, 
and Watertown to the Connecticut River was a 
migration of people for whom Massachusetts 
was too theocratic. In Connecticut there was 
no restriction of civil rights to church members ; 
the relative power of the representa- conditions in 
tives as compared with the Council Connecticut 
of Assistants was much greater, and the local 
independence of the several towns was more 
complete. Connecticut was originally more de- 
mocratic and more liberal in complexion than 
Massachusetts. 

On the other hand, the federal republic of 
New Haven closely resembled the common- 
wealth of Massachusetts, but was even more 
theocratic and aristocratic.^ But the union of 

^ [After the Restoration the people of Connecticut through 
their governor, the younger Winthrop, secured from the king 
a charter which included New Haven in the boundaries al- 
lotted to Connecticut, and in spite of the reluctance of the 
people of New Haven the absorption of their republic was 



212 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

New Haven with Connecticut did not by a mix- 
ture of plus and minus make a commonwealth 
^, „ quite like Massachusetts. The most 

New Haven T 

annexed to thcocratic clcments in New Haven 
onnec icu gjj-j^gj- migrated in large bodies to New 
Jersey, or came as individuals one by one back 
to Massachusetts. Of those who remained on 
the shores of Long Island Sound, the greater 
part were those who had protested against the 
New Haven theocracy with its exclusiveness. 
On the whole, the Connecticut of 1670 to 1690 
seems to have been a more liberal-minded com- 
munity than Massachusetts. 

But if we come forward into the nineteenth 
century, it can hardly be denied that while both 
states have maintained a high intellectual level, 
Massachusetts has been the more liberal-minded 
community. Or, if a different phrase be pre- 
Comparison fcrrcd, Massachusctts has been some- 

ofMassachu- L x. ^ • j ^' 

setts and what morc prompt in adopting new 
Connecticut ideas or in following out new vistas of 
thought, especially in all matters where theo- 
logy is concerned. Or, to put the case in yet 
another way, Massachusetts has shown less hesi- 
tation in departing from ancient standards. The 
history of Unitarianism is of itself a sufficient 
illustration of this. To some minds the rise of 
Unitarianism seems like a great step in advance ; 

consummated in 1665. Doyle, T'ke Puritan Colonies, ii. 
154-162.] 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 213 

to Other minds it seems like a deplorable for- 
saking of the highroad for byways that lead to 
Doubting Castle ; but all will agree that the 
great development of Unitarianism in Massa- 
chusetts, as compared with its small develop- 
ment in Connecticut, shows in the former state 
less hesitation in deviating from old standards. 
Something of the same contrast in regard to 
deviation is shown in the history of Yale Col- 
lege as contrasted with Harvard ; no ^ 

o _ ' Causes or 

one will deny that the temper of the Connecticut 

r 1 1 • conservatism 

Former has been more conservative. 
It becomes interesting, then, to inquire what 
has produced this change. In what respects 
have circumstances operated to render the career 
of Connecticut more conservative than that of 
the sister commonwealth ? Such questions are 
always difficult to answer with confidence, but 
certain facts may be pointed out which have a 
bearing upon the question. 

It is a general tendency of organizations to 
grow more rigid through increase of rules and 
definitions, and to interfere more and 
more with the free play of individu- dency in or- 
ality ; so that often in the pursuit of f^rigi^" 
a given end, the organization will so ^nd me- 

r 1 • 1 r 1 • chanical 

tar hamper itselr as to decrease its 
fitness for attaining the ends desired ; in other 
words, the ends become a matter of secondary 
importance, while the machinery of the organi- 



214 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

zation absorbs the entire attention. Especially 
has this been true in the case of ecclesiastical 
organizations. The members of a priesthood 
are apt to acquire an exaggerated idea of the im- 
portance of the body to which they belong and 
which is invested by public opinion with a pecu- 
liar sanctity, and they are apt to feel justified in 
making laws and regulations tending to coerce 
all their members into conformity with some 
prescribed set of rules. In Massachusetts an 
The instance early and baneful source of rigidity 
bridge pLT-' w^^ ^^^ Cambridge Platform of 1648, 
form, 1648 which enjoined it upon magistrates to 
punish any infractions of ecclesiastical doctrine 
or observance. Among the fruits of this Cam- 
bridge Platform were the odious proceedings 
against Baptists and Quakers, which have left 
such a stain upon the annals of Boston. But it 
is worthy of note that owing to the very re- 
strictions which confined the civil liberties of 
Massachusetts to communing church members, 
a large body of citizens grew up in opposition, 
so that the Commonwealth was never deprived 
of the healthful stimulus of competition and 
struggle between opposing views in interest. 
To such a point had this conflict come that 
when, in 1699, an attempt was made to fasten 
a religious test upon Harvard, it fell to the 
ground, and that critical period of the history 
of the Commonwealth saw Harvard falling more 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 215 

and more completely under the guidance of the 
party opposed to the old theocracy. Lack of a 
On the other hand, Connecticut pur- P^«y°^°P- 

' I position in 

sued the even tenor of her way from Connecticut 
the first beginnings into the nineteenth century 
with comparatively little severe internal commo- 
tion. She had for a moment, of course, resented 
the arrogance of Andros, but her constitution was 
never wrenched out of shape by such violent 
changes as those which Massachusetts witnessed 
after 1685. I think we must attribute it to this 
very fact of the slightness and gentleness of the 
opposition, — to the comparative mildness of ec- 
clesiastical life in Connecticut, — that at the be- 
ginning of the eighteenth century her clergymen 
and people should have yielded so easily to the 
natural impulse to improve, or, rather, to define 
and limit their ecclesiastical organizations. By 
that time it bad come to seem to many worthy 
people that the work of the church might be 
greatly facilitated if its organization were made 
a little more thorough in its working. The 
result was the synod held at the town of Say- 
brook in May, 1708, which adopted the famous 
constitution known as the Sayb/ook Platform. 
This constitution provided that " the par- 
ticular pastors and churches, within the respec- 
tive counties in this government," should " be 
one consociation, or more if they should judge 
meet, for mutual affording to each other such 



216 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

assistance as may be requisite, upon all occa- 
sions ecclesiastical." Hitherto ecclesiastical au- 
^j^^ thority had been exercised by councils 

Saybrook formed by voluntary election by indi- 
viduals or by single churches. Such 
authority was henceforth to be vested in per- 
manent councils appointed by the consociation 
of churches. Disobedience to the decree of one 
of these permanent councils was punished by 
excommunication of the too independent pastor 
or church. The council of one consociation 
might invite councils from one or more neigh- 
bouring consociations to take part in its proceed- 
ings, and it was further provided that a general 
association consisting of representatives from all 
the churches in the commonwealth should be 
held every year at the time of the election of 
governor and legislature. 

This platform was adopted by the General 
Court of Connecticut, with the proviso that a 
church which conducted itself discreetly and 
soberly might be allowed to carry on worship 
and exercise discipline according to its own con- 
science, even though it should not be able to 
enter into the consociation of churches. This 
was a prudent and liberal provision, and was 
intended to prevent injustice and persecution. 
The general effect of the platform was to assim- 
ilate Congregationalism in Connecticut to Pres- 
byterianism, and there can be little doubt that 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 217 

this was an important change in the direction 
of conservatism. Manifestly, the power of any 
ecclesiastical organization in checking xhe piat- 
individual variations depends upon fo™ tends 

I A to assimilate 

the coercive power which the whole Congrega- 

b^ 1 C ' J. tionalism to 

rmg to bear upon any one or its Presbyterian- 

parts. Manifestly, the conservative '^m 
power of a Mussulman caliph, being absolutely 
unchecked, was greater than that of the medi- 
aeval Pope, who might be limited by a council 
or thwarted by an emperor. Still less coercive 
power could be exercised by a sovereign head of 
a church, like Elizabeth or Charles II. Still less 
could be exercised by a Presbyterian synod, and 
from this again down to an independent congre- 
gation the step in diminution of coercive power 
was a long one. It is therefore interesting and 
significant that just at the moment when Mas- 
sachusetts by the founding of Brattle Church 
took a long step in the direction Massachu- 
of further independency, Connecticut conneakut 
should have taken a decided conser- change places 
vative step in the direction of Presbyterianism. 
The effect exerted by the mere possession of 
coercive power does not always need to be ex- 
hibited by overt actions ; it is a subtle effect 
consisting largely in the colouring which it gives 
to that indefinable thing known as public opin- 
ion, but I suspect that in the circumstances here 
narrated we have at least a partial explanation 



218 XEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of the fact that a century later, when so many 
churches in Massachusetts adopted Unitarian 
theology while still reniaininor Congregational 
churches, on the other hand, in Connecticut a 
step so extreme was very difficult to take, and 
that W'hile there were churches in which dissent 
from time-honoured doctrines was rife, never- 
theless it was seldom that Unitarian doctrines 
were avowed. 

One effect of the Savbrook Platform was to 
make it easy in later times for the Congrega- 
tional churches in Connecticut to fraternize with 
the Presbyterian churches. To such an extent 
has this fraternization been carried in modern 
times, that persons in Connecticut and states 
to the west of it are very apt to use the word 
" Presbyterian " in a loose sense when they 
really mean "Congregational," — a use of lan- 
guage which would have made the hair of one 
of Cromwell's Ironsides stand on end with 
horror. 

The beginning of the eighteenth century in 
Connecticut was also memorable for the found- 
^, , ing of Yale College. The journey from 

The found- , ° ^ . ° /- i • j 

ingot Yale the Connecticut towns to Cambridge 
° ^^^ was much longer than it is now, and 

it vyas felt that there ought to be a college nearer 
home. The movement was begun by a meeting 
at Branford of ten ministers, nine of whom were 
graduates of Harvard. These gentlemen con- 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 219 

trihuted from their libraries about forty gigantic 
folios for the founding of a college library. 
Other gifts began to come in, and an act of in- 
corporation in 1 701 created a body of trustees, 
all of whom were to be clergymen and not less 
than forty years of age. The college was at first 
situated in Saybrook, though in the first years 
the classes were taught at Killingworth, where 
the first rector of the college, Abraham Pierson, 
was pastor. At length the college was settled in 
New Haven in 17 16, and two years later it re- 
ceived the name of Yale College in recognition 
of a donation from Klihu Yale, a merchant of 
London, whose father had been one of the ori- 
ginal settlers of New Haven. Now this found- 
ing of Yale College exerted a conservative effect 
upon the mind of Connecticut. While 
on the one hand it brought a classical vative ten- 
education within the reach of many Connecticut 
persons who would not have gone reinforced by 

„ , . , . . ^ . the college 

to Cambridge to get it, on the other 
hand it tended to cut off the clergy of Con- 
necticut from the liberalizing influences which 
were so plainly beginning to be powerful at 
Harvard. From the outset something like a 
segregation began. Many persons in Massachu- 
setts who were disinclined to the liberalism of 
Leverett and the Brattles transferred their affec- 
tions to Yale College, making gifts to it and 
sending their sons there, and in this way the 



220 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

conservatism of the university that was con- 
trolled 'entirely by ministers holding under the 
Saybrook Platform was increased. When to all 
these circumstances we add that the royal gov- 
ernor in Boston, although an abiding cause of 
irritation, nevertheless kept bringing in ideas 
and fashions from Europe, we can see how the 
stormier life of Massachusetts Bay was more 
favourable to change than the delicious quiet 
of the land of steady habits. 

The general state of the church in New Eng- 
land in the first decades of the eighteenth cen- 
tury was one which may be best characterized 
by saying that spiritualitv was at a low ebb. 
Pretty much the same might be said of the 
church in England, and if we were to extend the 
State of reii- obscrvation to France, we should have 
gion early to make it Still more emphatic. The 

in the r i • r i • 

eighteenth causes OF this State ot thmgs were 
century compHcatcd. Among other things, 

the scientific reaction against supernaturalism, 
which was so rapidly destroying the belief in 
witchcraft, was leading the great mass of superfi- 
cial thinkers in the direction of materialism. In 
France the church had discredited itself through 
an alliance with despotism, until nearly all the 
best minds had turned against it. In England 
the epoch of intense mental exaltation which 
characterized the seventeenth century had pro- 
voked a reaction in which worldly-mindedness 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 221 

prevailed and sanctity was derided. There can 
be little doubt, I think, that the political uses 
to which religion had been put during the 
terrible struggle of the counter-reformation had 
done much to loosen its spiritual hold upon 
men's minds. Something may be said, too, of 
the rapidly expanding effects of com- 
merce. Men's interests were multi- commercial 
plying so that something must suffer '"'^""'^^ 
for a time, and religion, for the causes already 
mentioned, was the weak spot in the social 
fabric. 

But whatever the explanation may be, the 
fact is generally accepted that the early years of 
the eighteenth century were a period of coldness 
in religious matters. This coldness was quite 
generally perceived and lamented by clergymen 
and laymen throughout New England, and 
speculations were rife as to the probable cause 
and the best cure. It is not unlikely that among 
other things the Halfway Covenant may have 
exerted a baneful influence. If there could be 
anything serious and solemn in life it would 
seem to be the ascertainment of the state of 
mind which would quaHfy a person for partici- 
pation in the Lord's Supper, yet the Halfway 
Covenant practically admitted to this sacrament 
all persons of decorous lives who had been 
baptized in infancy. One effect of this was to 
endow infant baptism with the character of a 



222 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

magical ceremony and to make of the commun- 
ion a mere lifeless form. At first, indeed, the 
supporters of the Halfway Covenant simply 
allowed baptized members of the congregation 
" Stoddard- to votc and hold office, without allow- 
eanism" jj^g j-^gj^j ^q participate in the com- 
munion until they could make some statement 
of their internal experience which proved them 
qualified for such participation ; but a crisis 
seemed to be reached when the Rev. Solomon 
Stoddard of Northampton admitted people to 
communion without any other credentials than 
proof of baptism in infancy.^ 

This work was to be undone and this whole 
state of things put an end to by the writings 
and the preaching of Solomon Stoddard's grand- 
son, a man who was one of the wonders of the 
world, probably the greatest intelligence that 
Jonathan the wcstcm hemisphere has yet seen. 
Edwards Jonathan Edwards was born at East 
Windsor, Conn., in 1703, inheriting extraordi- 
nary abilities both from his father, Rev. Timo- 
thy Edwards, and from his mother, Esther 
Stoddard. From early childhood Edwards was 
a personage manifestly set apart for some high 
calling. His " Notes on Nature," written at the 

^ [On this outgrowth of the Halfway Covenant, see 
Walker, Hist, of the Congregatiofial Churches in the U. S., 
pp. 180—182. Stoddard advocated this practice as early as 
1679. It was adopted in his church in 1706.] 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 223 

age of sixteen, show a precocity as remarkable 
as that of Pascal ; his Treatise on the Will and 
other works of his maturity show a metaphy- 
sical power comparable with that of Kant or 
Berkeley ; while in many of his speculations 
his mind moves through the loftiest regions of 
thought with a sustained strength of flight that 
comes near reminding one of the mighty Spi- 
noza. There can be no doubt that the more 
one considers Edwards, the more colossal and 
astonishing beseems. Among writers of Chris- 
tian theology his place is by the side of Augus- 
tine, Aquinas, and Calvin. At the same time, 
there was more in Edwards than sheer power 
of intellect. His character was as great as his 
genius. The highest attributes of manliness 
were united in him. He was a man of deep 
affection, abounding in sympathy, so that with- 
out resorting to the ordinary devices of rhetoric 
he became a preacher of the first order. Now in 
the mind of Jonathan Edwards there ^, , , 

•' _ _ _ hdwards s 

was a vein of mysticism as unmistak- vein of 
able as that in the mind of William '"y^'^"^'^'" 
Penn. Such mysticism may be found in minds 
of medium capacity, but in minds of the highest 
type I believe it is rarely absent. A mind which 
has plunged deeply into the secrets of nature 
without exhibiting such a vein of mysticism is, 
I believe, a mind sterilized and cut off in one 
direction from access to the truth. Along with 



224 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Edwards's abstruse reasoning there was a spirit- 
ual consciousness as deep as that of Spinoza or 
Novalis. From his mystic point of view, the 
change whereby a worldly, unregenerate man 
or woman became fitted for divine life was a 
conversion of the soul, an alteration of its inner- 
most purposes, a change of heart from evil to 
goodness. Perhaps this way of conceiving the 
His emphasis ^^^^ was not ncw with Edwards. From 
on conversion ^^g carlicst ages of Christianity a turn- 
ing of the soul from the things of this world to 
Christ has been the essential, but the importance 
of what has since come to be known as conver- 
sion, or change of heart, assumed dimensions 
never known before. As Calvinism enhanced 
the value of the individual soul by representing 
it as the subject of a mighty struggle between 
the powers of heaven and those of hell, so 
Edwards, while setting forth this notion in all 
its grimness, gave it a touch of infinite tragedy 
and pathos through the power with which he 
conceived the situation of the soul whose salva- 
tion trembled in the balance. The distinction 
between the converted and the unconverted be- 
came in his hands more vitally important than 
the older distinction between the elect and the 
non-elect. There was great difficulty in work- 
ing the two distinctions together, and a large 
portion of the eighteenth century was consumed 
by New England theologians in grappling with 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 225 

this difficulty. It was due to Edwards that the 
prime question with every anxious mind was 
not so much, Am I one of the elect ? as this 
other question, Have I surrendered my heart 
to Christ? It is obvious that this new point 
of view in itself, and even more in the mood 
in which it was set forth, soon worked a vivify- 
ing change in the religious consciousness of 
New England. The effect was presently shown 
in those so-called revivals which are 

, . J r 1 Revivals 

m the strict sense a product or the 
New England mind. Phenomena of religious 
excitement, sometimes reaching epidemic pro- 
portions, are of course to be found among 
heathen savages, but religious emotion of an 
intense sort, coupled with a high general level 
of education, such as we see it in modern re- 
vivals, is something that had its beginnings in 
New England. The essential features of a re- 
vival are the aroused consciousness of sin, over- 
whelming fears associated therewith, and a con- 
dition of doubt as to whether one has really 
satisfied the conditions of salvation. One can 
see that when such a state of things has been 
generally reached in a community, there is no 
longer any room for such mechanical devices as 
the Halfway Covenant. Before such a state of 
things can be reached, the ecclesiastical atmos- 
phere must be spiritualized. To this end the 
whole tenor of Edwards's preaching contributed. 



226 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

for he insisted, with as much emphasis as Wil- 
liam Penn, upon the insignificance of the form 
as compared with the spirit. 

Sometimes the religious revival seemed a 
mere survival of barbaric superstition, — as 
when the earthquake of 1727 brought people in 
The Revival crowds into the Boston churches. But 
of 1734 in 1734 there began at Northampton, 
where Edwards, who had succeeded his grand- 
father, had been preaching for eight years, a 
revival of a much higher kind. This wave of 
religious excitement spread through the whole 
Connecticut valley and lasted for six months. It 
attracted some notice in England, and presently 
George Whitefield accepted an invitation from 
Dr. Benjamin Colman to come to New Eng- 
land and preach. Whitefield was twenty-six 
George ycars of age, and had just been or- 

^^Jj^f J'^'* dained as a minister of the Church of 
New England England. He was a man of medi- 
ocre intelligence, without distinction either as a 
scholar or as a thinker, but his gifts as an ora- 
tor were very extraordinary. In 1740 White- 
field preached in various parts of New England, 
sometimes in churches, sometimes in the open 
air, to audiences which on occasion reached 
15,000 in number. He made a pilgrimage to 
Northampton in order to visit the preacher of 
the late revival there, and thought he had never 
seen such a man as Edwards, while, on the other 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 227 

hand, under the influence of Whitefield's musi- 
cal voice, Edwards sat weeping during the en- 
tire sermon. 

The example set by Whitefield was followed 
after his departure by a Presbyterian minister 
from New Jersey named Gilbert Ten- Gilbert 
nent. This preacher came to Boston Tennent 
and spent some three months in the neighbour- 
hood, preaching to enormous audiences with 
most startling effect. Tennent was followed by 
James Davenport of Southold, Long Island, a 
great-grandson of the famous Davenport of the 
old New Haven colony. This James Daven- 
port was highly esteemed by Whitefield and 
other revivalist preachers, but his ill-balanced 
enthusiasm led him to very strange lengths. 
On one occasion he is said to have preached a 
sermon nearly twenty-four hours in length, with 
such violence of intonation and gesture that 
he brought on a brain fever. He was consti- 
tutionally intemperate in speech, eccentric in 
action, and inspired by that peculiar self-conceit 
which is one of the marks of mental derange- 
ment. If he came to a town where james 
little excitement was manifested on Davenport 
the subject of religion he would revile the min- 
isters of the town, accusing them of being un- 
converted, blind leaders of the blind, and he * 
warned the people that by listening to such 
preaching they were imperilling their souls. At 



228 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Boston he grew so abusive that the ministers 
held a conference and decided that they would 
not allow him the use of their pulpits. Nothing 
daunted, however, this Boanerges hurled forth 
his thunderbolts on such places as Copp's Hill 
and Boston Common, where he spoke his mind 
with great freedom to thousands of listeners. 
For example, in one of his prayers, he said, 
" Good Lord, I will not mince the matter any 
longer with Thee, for Thou knowest that I 
know that most of the ministers of Boston and 
of the country are unconverted, and are leading 
their people blindfold to hell." For these words 
Davenport was indicted for slander, but was 
acquitted on the ground of insanity. 

A situation had now arisen in some respects 

not unlike that when Mrs. Hutchinson and 

her Antinomian friends had been preaching in 

Boston a century earlier. One of the 

Comparison ... 

with the chief objections to the Antinomians 
n inomians ^^^ ^j^^^ ^j^^^ profcsscd to havc their 

minds illumined by a divine light which en- 
abled them to see truths hidden from the gen- 
erality of Christians, and in this belief they 
confidently assailed even the highest of the 
clergy as creatures acting under a covenant of 
works. It was now held by many clergymen 
that the conduct of Tennent and Davenport 
and other followers of Whitefield resembled 
that of the Antinomians, and tended to mtro- 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 229 

duce dissensions into the churches. There can 
be no doubt that such was its immediate effect. 
Emotional extravagances on the part of revi- 
valists were so marked as to lead many persons 
to question whether, in view of this and of the 
intemperate criticism that had been indulged 
in, the revival had not really been productive 
of more harm than good. Such questions were 
agitated until in almost every church there came 
to be a party who approved of the revival and 
a party which condemned it. Under these cir- 
cumstances it is not strange that the power of 
the revival should have declined, or that we 
should find the Rev. Thomas Prince writing 
in 1744 that "The Sovereign Spirit, in His 
awakening influence, has seemed these two last 
years in a gradual and awful manner to with- 
draw. For a twelvemonth I have rarely heard 
the cry of any new ones. What shall I do to be 
saved ? But few are now added to our churches 
and the heavenly shower in Boston seems to be 
over." About the time that Prince expressed 
himself so despondingly Whitefield whitefieid's 
returned to New England, but he was return to 
not so much a novelty as before and ^^"'^"s'^"'^ 
made less sensation. The Brattle Church showed 
its liberality by inviting him, an Episcopal priest, 
to administer its Communion. On the other 
hand. President Holyoke and the Faculty of 
Harvard passed a resolution condemning his 



230 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

itinerant methods, and the clergymen of Cam- 
bridge refused to allow him in their pulpits ; so 
that his preaching was done to a large audience 
on Cambridge Common. 

In Massachusetts the opposition to the revi- 
valists showed itself only in such protests by 
professors and clergymen, but in Connecticut 
the matter went further. Whitefield, Tennent, 
and Davenport travelled about in that com- 
monwealth, making converts by hundreds, and 
Davenport, at least, made no scruple of attack- 
ing the settled ministers. These proceedings 
called forth interference from the government. 
Davenport At Stratford Davenport was arrested 
"St ""^ ^°^ disturbing the peace by gathering 
disturbance great crowds of people, filling their 
heads with pernicious doctrines, and inciting 
them to a noisy and disorderly demeanour. 
During their examination a mob of their con- 
verts undertook to rescue them from the sher- 
iff's custody, and in order to quiet the disturb- 
ance it proved necessary to call out the militia. 
For revivalist practices similar to Davenport's 
the Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy was turned out of 
office and deprived of his salary. 

It thus appears that one result of the Great 
Awakening was to stir up dissension in the 
churches between the more aristocratic ministry 
of the old type and the more democratic preach- 
ers like Whitefield and his friends. Our ac- 



THE GREAT AWAKENING 231 

count would be far from complete if we were to 
omit the conclusion of the story at Northamp- 
ton, the home of Jonathan Edwards, from whose 
preaching this Great Awakening had Last days of 
emanated. We have seen that the Edwards 
Edwards doctrine of conversion was flatly op- 
posed to the Halfway Covenant to which Ed- 
wards's grandfather in Northampton had given 
its most extreme form. In 1749, after Edwards 
had been settled twenty-two years over that par- 
ish and regarded with extreme reverence by his 
parishioners, he suddenly lost favour with them 
by insisting upon more rigorous requirements 
in admitting communicants to the church. 
This gave rise to a quarrel of such bitterness 
that Edwards's parish not only dismissed him, 
but obtained a vote in town meeting to the 
effect that he should not be allowed any more 
to enter a pulpit in that town. The result was 
the removal of Edwards to Berkshire for mis- 
sionary work among the Stockbridge Indians, 
and thence after six years to the presidency of 
Princeton College. He died in Princeton at the 
early age of fifty-five. 

One result of the breaking down of the Half- 
way Covenant was to discredit infant baptism, so 
that the majority of the revivalists of the more 
democratic type went over to the Baptist church 
and greatly swelled its numbers in New Eng- 
land. With regard to the general effect of the 



232 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Awakening, in spite of the extravagances with 
which it was here and there attended, it cer- 
tainly did much to heighten and deepen the 
reHgious life in New England. As compared 
with the old days of the Halfway Covenant, the 
new doctrine of conversion was like an uplift- 
ing of the soul to better things. The religious 
thought of the seventeenth century was in dan- 
ger of losing its life among dry logical formulas. 
It needed to be touched with emotion, and that 
Results of the was what the Great Awakening ac- 
Awakening compUshcd. It may be said to have 
exerted a stimulating influence similar to that 
which attended the preaching of the Wesleys 
in England, and it should not be forgotten 
that John Wesley in the early part of his career 
received a powerful stimulus from news which 
reached him from New England. If we were 
able thoroughly to sift all relevant facts I think 
we should conclude that in producing the ten- 
derness of soul in which the nineteenth cen- 
tury so far surpassed the eighteenth, a consider- 
able share must be assigned to the preaching 
and self-searchings, the prayers and tears, the 
jubilation and praise, of the Great Awakening. 



VII 
NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 

WHEN Mr. Seward, about forty years 
ago, spoke of the " irrepressible con- 
flict" between slavery and freedom, 
it was generally felt that he had invented a 
happy and telling phrase. It was a conflict 
equally irrepressible that was carried on for sev- 
enty years between France and England for the 
possession of North America. It was _, 
the strife between absolutism and pressibie 
individualism, between paternal gov- tween'France 
ernment carried to the last extreme, ^n^ England 

, , .. - - in America 

and the spontaneous lire or commu- 
nities that governed themselves in town meet- 
ing. Alike in Europe and in America each 
party was aggressive and uncompromising. 
Particularly in America the proximity of the 
Indians made it next to impossible to avoid 
bloodshed even when the governments of 
France and England were nominally at peace 
with one another. There is no better illustra- 
tion of this than is afibrded by the story of 
Norridgewock. 

The treaty of Utrecht, by which the long war 



234 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of the Spanish succession was brought to an end 
in 1713, transferred the province of Acadia 
from France to England. After many changes 
of ownership backward and forward it was de- 
Acadia finally ^idcd that Acadia was finally to be- 
passes to comc English. But what was Acadia? 
As customarily applied, the name in- 
cluded Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and a part 
of Maine ; and the English maintained that all 
this territory was ceded to them by the treaty ; 
but the French, on the other hand, maintained 
that they had only given away Nova Scotia, 
and woe to the Englishman who should dare to 
meddle with the rest ! It was intended that this 
question should be settled by a special commis- 
sion, but the question was such a ticklish one 
that neither country was in haste to appoint a 
commission, and so things remained until the 
matter was settled forever by the mighty Seven 
Years' War. 

According to the French view, the boundary 
between their territory and that of New Eng- 
land was the river Kennebec. This line they 
felt it important to defend for two reasons. 
The French First, the Ncw England settlements 
li'mTtsV ^ were rapidly extending northeast- 
Acadia wardly along the coast ; secondly, the 

sources of the Kennebec were connected by an 
intricate network of streams, marshes, and lake- 
lets, with those of the Chaudiere, which falls 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 235 

into the St. Lawrence just opposite Quebec. It 
was an excessively difficult route by which to 
invade Canada, as Benedict Arnold found half 
a century later. Nevertheless, it was a possible 
route which the French felt it necessary to bar. 
In this they proceeded according to their usual 
manner by establishing a hold upon their Al- 
gonquin friends along the Kennebec River. 

These Algonquins were commonly known 
as Abenakis, or Eastern Men. Their grade of 
culture was quite similar to that of the tribes in 
Massachusetts and considerably more advanced 
than that of the Micmacs of Nova Scotia. They 
were divided into numerous tribes and sub- 
tribes, the names of which, such as Kennebec, 
Penobscot, etc., have in many cases remained 
as local names upon the map, while the most 
important of these Abenaki tribes was The Abenaki 
that of the Norridgewocks, inasmuch "''''" 
as their position guarded the approaches to the 
upper waters of the Kennebec. The stockaded 
Norridgewock village was situated close by the 
river, about seventy-five miles from its mouth, 
and a journey to it from Portsmouth or Boston 
seemed like plunging into the innermost depths 
of the wilderness. These Indians were no longer 
heathen, for they had all been converted and bap- 
tized by the devoted effiorts of Father Sebas- 
tian Rale. This interesting man was a native 
of that part of Burgundy known as Franche- 



236 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Comte, and when thirty-two years of age came 
over to Canada with Frontenac in 1689. After 
a more or less migratory service extending as 
Sebastian far west as the IlHnois River, Father 
^^^^ Rale took charge of the Norridge- 

wock Indians in 1693, ^^^ remained with them 
until his death. His attainments in American 
languages were very considerable, for he pos- 
sessed a fluent knowledge of at least three dia- 
lects of Algonquin, besides the Huron dialect 
of Iroquois, and his knowledge of the Indian 
character was as thorough as his proficiency in 
their tongue. The Norridgewock village was a 
square enclosure 160 feet on each side, walled 
in with a palisade of stout logs about nine or 
ten feet in height. In the middle of each side 
was a gate, and the two streets connecting the 
gates crossed each other in an open square at 
the centre. Within the enclosure were twenty- 
six wigwams, and outside of it at a distance of 
a few yards stood the chapel. Altogether it was 
a much ruder village than the Iroquois Hoche- 
laga which Cartier had visited nearly two centu- 
ries before, and very much ruder than the 
Onondaga village attacked by Champlain in 
16 1 5. Besides being the spiritual father of this 
The Nor- little Community, Father Rale was 
ridgewock of ncccssity a jack-of-all-trades. He 

village 1 1 • r j 

must be a bit or a carpenter, and 
more or less of a gardener, with a pennyweight 




FLO 



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ERICA 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 237 

of medicine to an intolerable deal of theology, 
and unlimited devotion to the spiritual needs 
of his flock. To these duties he added those 
of linguist and diplomat ; for his leisure hours 
were whiled away in making a vocabulary of 
the Abenaki tongue, while his own talent of 
speech was put to diligent use in instructing all 
the tribes of that region how to comport them- 
selves in the presence of the much hated Eng- 
lish. 

At the time of the peace of Utrecht, the 
country between the Piscataqua and the Kenne- 
bec had been the scene of atrocious warfare for 
nearly forty years. First there was King Philip's 
War in which the French had no part, and then 
there were the two great wars between France 
and England from 1689 to 1697, ^'"^^ from 1702 
to 17 13. The result was that this border coun- 
try had almost relapsed into a desert, -p^e country 
But after 17 13, a new wave of set- between the 
tlement advanced northeasterly, old and the 
villages were rebuilt and new ones ^'^""^^^'^ 
founded, and in all directions might be seen 
clearings in the forest, where the smoke curled 
up from the log cabins of English pioneers. 
Now this advance of the white frontier incensed 
and alarmed the Indians, as it was natural that 
it should. They maintained that the English 
were encroaching upon their lands. The Eng- 
lish retorted that these lands were their own, in- 



238 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

asmuch as they had formerly been bought from 
Indian sachems, and prices had been paid for 
them which the Indians had deemed liberal and 
satisfactory. But the red man's notions of own- 
ership and transfer of real estate were in a hope- 
lessly different stage of evolution from those of 
the white man. To an Indian, the selling of a 
The Indian territory meant little more than grant- 
view of seu- ingr permission to catch fish and game 

ing land ^ ^ . , i • i • 

upon It, or to pass through it unhin- 
dered for whatever purpose. The Indian had 
not arrived at the point where the sale of an 
estate conveys to the vendee the right to ex- 
clude the vendor ; but his mind was open to a 
suggestion of Father Rale, that no sale of land 
by a sachem could be other than void because 
the land was the property of the clan, and must 
be kept in trust for the children born to the 
clan. This was" exactly in accordance with In- 
dian ways of thinking, and it is not strange that 
Father Rale's doctrine suited the red men's 
temper better than the English notion that after 
once buying the land they had a right to fence 
the Indian out. As the English farmhouses 
came nearer and an occasional blockhouse was 
erected, the disgust of the Abenakis increased 
beyond all bounds, but they entertained a 
wholesome dread of attacking the English with- 
out assistance from the French, and this was 
difficult to obtain in time of peace. 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 239 

While the French, however, prudently re- 
frained from gross violations of international 
law, they were nevertheless quite willing to 
incite the Indians to attack the Eng- The Indians 
lish. Vaudreuil, the governor of ^nd the 
Canada, expressly declared that it 
was convenient to maintain a secret alliance 
with the Indians, since the latter might inflict 
much damage upon the English, while the 
French could disclaim all responsibility for their 
acts. 

In 1717, when Colonel Shute was royal gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, a conference was held 
on Arrowsick Island at the mouth conference 
of the Kennebec River. There the between 

1 11 1 Governor 

Indians showed themselves so eager shuteandthe 
for peace that even the insults of Gov- ^"'''^"' 
ernor Shute, who was an arrogant person utterly 
destitute of tact, failed to produce an outbreak. 
A Puritan minister from Medfield by the name 
of Joseph Baxter was left among the Indians 
to counteract by his preaching the influence of 
Father Rale; and the twain indulged Baxter and 
in a Latin correspondence, in which ^^^^ 
the writers not only attacked each other's poli- 
tics and theology, but made game of each other's 
Latin style, — a kind of fierce banter in which 
the Puritan came off second best. This con- 
test over the Kennebec River was typical of 
the whole struggle between the French and the 



240 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

English. On the one hand, there was the 
steadily advancing front of the self-governing 
and greatly thriving agricultural community ; 
on the other hand, there was the little group 
of French noblemen and priests governing a 
mere handful of settlers, and striving to keep 
back the advancing English by means of diplo- 
matic control over barbarous Indians. It was a 
struggle which could really have but one issue. 
It was a struggle, moreover, that was conducted 
without pity or mercy, with scarcely a pretence 
of regard for the amenities of civilized warfare. 
Neither side was particularly scrupulous, while 
from that day to this, each side has kept up a 
terrible outcry against the other for doing the 
very same thing which it did itself. From that 
day to this English writers have held up their 
hands in holy horror at the atrocious conduct 
of the French in sending savages to burn vil- 
lages and massacre women and children on the 
English border. Yet was it not an English 
governor of New York who in 1689 launched 
the Iroquois thunderbolt against Canada, one 
of the most frightful Indian incursions known 
to history ? It does not appear that the con- 
science of either Puritan or Catholic was in the 
slightest degree disturbed by these horrors. 
Each felt sure that he was fighting the Devil, 
and thought it quite proper to fight iiim with 
his own weapons. 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 241 

On the Kennebec frontier the problem for 
New France was to prevent English villages 
and fortresses from advancing in that The Indians 
direction, and the most obvious way a"tack'^the'° 
of accomplishing the result was to English 
instigate the Indians to acts of warfare. This 
was the avowed policy of Vaudreuil, and it was 
carried out by Father Rale to the best of his 
ability. When he found that his Norridgewock 
Indians were timid, and inclined to peace, he 
sent to Montreal and caused parties of warriors 
from divers tribes, Ottawas, Caughnawagas, 
Hurons, and others, to be sent to the Kenne- 
bec River, where all engaged in a frantic war 
dance, and quite carried away the Norridge- 
wocks in a frenzy of bloodthirsty enthusiasm. 
This was in 1721. Then began the sickening 
tale so many times repeated in early American 
history, — the tale of burning homes, of youth 
and beauty struck down by the tomahawk, and of 
captives led away through the gloom of the forest 
to meet a fiery death. Thus, in turn, the English 
government at Boston was confronted Border war- 
with its problem : how to put a stop ^^""^ 
to these horrors without bringing on a new war 
with France. The practical New England mind 
saw that the principal hotbed of all the mischief 
must be destroyed, and if a Frenchman or two 
should come to grief in the process, it was his 
own fault for playing so recklessly with fire. It 



242 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

was easier, however, for Boston to know what 
ought to be done than to do it ; for there was 
the irreconcilable hostility between governor and 
legislature to be reckoned with. For example, 
when the Norridgewocks on one occasion com- 
plained to Governor Shute that they were 
cheated and shamefully used by irresponsible 
traders, the governor undertook to set up cer- 
tain trading stations on the frontier which 
should be controlled by trustworthy persons, 
and where Indians might rest assured of fair 
Conflicts be- treatment, but when he proposed this 
. STvTrntand pl^" to the Asscmbly, that body flatly 
the Assembly rcfuscd to appropriate any money for 
the purpose. Finally, when the torches were 
lighted and the shrieks of the victims were 
heard, when the indignant governor was raising 
his arm to strike, what should this contuma- 
cious Assembly do but interpose obstacle after 
obstacle ! Not only was it unwilling to entrust 
the governor with the money for obtaining mil- 
itary supplies, but it even insisted upon carry- 
ing on the war through committees of its own. 
Its blundering conduct was not unlike that of 
the Continental Congress in the War for Inde- 
pendence. After a while the course of the legis- 
lature put the governor into such a rage that on 
New Year's day, 1723, he drove down to the 
water side, and embarked in a ship for London 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOU IS BURG 243 

without so much as telling anybody what he 
was about to do. He left it for the town to rub 
its eyes in astonishment at finding its governor 
gone. 

His place was filled by the lieutenant-gov- 
ernor, William Dummer, who fared no better 
at the hands of the Assembly, al- 

• r -NT r- Shute suc- 

though he was a native of New rLng- ceeded by 
land. The Assembly insisted that °"'"'"" 
two competent but unpopular officers should 
be removed from command, and when Dummer 
refused, the many-headed king retorted by re- 
fusing to grant supplies until the officers in ques- 
tion should have been removed. When we read 
of such scenes as this, which were perpetually 
recurring during the seventy years' struggle with 
France, we can understand why the British gov- 
ernment thought it necessary to raise money by 
stamps in order to protect the frontier against 
the Indians. 

After much tribulation an expedition under 
Colonel Westbrook sailed for the Penobscot 
River, ascended it for some distance 

1 1 • r T) Expeditions 

above the site or Bangor, and de- against the 
stroyed a missionary village which ^"^'^"^ 
the French had founded there. The next year, 
1724, a force of about 200 men went up the 
Kennebec River, carried the Norridgewock vil- 
lage by storm, and slew many of its defenders, 



244 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

while the rest were scattered. In the course of 
the fight Father Rale was shot through the head. 
Puritan writers have sought to stigmatize this 
interesting man as a murderer, while Catholics 
have praised him as a martyr. In the impartial 
light of history, he was neither the one nor the 
other. He was true to his own sense of duty, 
and the worst that can be said about him is 
The death of that hc was not exceptionally scrupu- 
FatherRaie j^^g jj^ j^jg choicc of poHtical and 

military means; while on the other hand, the 
title of "martyr" seems hardly to belong to a 
man who was killed in the ordinary course of 
battle, not because of his religious faith, but be- 
cause he was fighting in the service of France.^ 

The fighting thus begun continued for nearly 
four years, and in the course of it the Norridge- 
Extermina- wock tribc was practically extermi- 
No"rridgt' nated. The destruction of that mis- 
wock tribe sion was a serious blow to the French 
hold upon the Maine frontier, and they never 
succeeded in making good the loss. 

Our forefathers of that time had come to re- 
gard Indians very much in the light of wolves 
or panthers, to be hunted and slain wherever 
found. Parties of yeomanry were enlisted for 
the purpose of penetrating into the wilderness 

^ [On the manner of Rale's death, see Parkman, Ha/f 
CeJitury of Conflict, i. 237-239 ; and on the Norridgewock 
troubles as a whole, the same, pp. 205-240."] 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 245 

and finding the enemy in his lair. The regular 
wages paid by the Commonwealth for such ser- 
vice were half a crown a day, paid in a currency 
so depreciated that the half-crown amounted 
to about twenty-five cents of our money; but, 
in addition, there was a liberal bounty of a 
hundred pounds for each Indian scalp. Even 
in that detestable rag money a hundred pounds 
was worth securing. Among the leaders in 
this rough service was Captain John Lovewell 
of Dunstable on the Merrimac River, a son 
of one of Cromwell's soldiers. In January, 
1725, he earned his first hundred pounds by 
bringing a scalp from a remote point among the 
White Mountains. It was customary for the 
Massachusetts rangers to patrol those wild 
stretches of forest, through which captain 
Algonquins from Canada used to ^-o^eweii 
come on their murderous raids. Toward the 
end of February, 1725, Lovewell's party were 
passing the shores of a large pond in what is 
now the township of Fryeburg in Maine, just 
on the border of New Hampshire, and about 
sixty miles north of Dover. That sheet of 
water is still known as Lovewell's Pond. Near 
its shore his party suddenly came upon ten In- 
dians sleeping around a fire, and immediately 
killed them all, for which they received a thou- 
sand pounds from the treasurer at Boston. The 



246 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Indians who were killed were on their way to 
join an expedition for massacre in the frontier 
villages, so that the bounty would seem to have 
been well bestowed. A few weeks later Love- 
well once more tried his fortune at the head of 
forty-six men, but as they approached the pond 
which had witnessed their winter performance, 
one or two of their number fell sick, so that it 
was necessary to build a rude fortification and 
leave there a guard for the sick ones. This re- 
duced the number to thirty-four. Early on a 
bright May morning these men fell into an am- 
buscade of Pequawket Indians, and they kept 
Loveweii's up a dcsperatc fight all day against 
fight overwhelming odds. Toward sunset 

the Indians gave way and retired from the 
scene, leaving a tremendous harvest of scalps 
for the victors. But these children of the Iron- 
sides had paid a high price for their victory. 
Captain Lovewell and eleven others were slain, 
being rather more than one third of the number. 
One coward had run away and told so dismal a 
story to the sick men and their guard that they 
deemed it best to quit their rude fortification 
and travel southward with all possible despatch. 
The retreat from the battlefield began at mid- 
night and was led by Ensign Wyman. One of 
the party was the chaplain of the expedition, 
Rev. Jonathan Frye of Andover, a youth of 
twenty-one, recently graduated at Harvard, who 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 247 

was as zealous an Indian killer as any of the 
party. He had been terribly wounded in the 
fight, and as he felt his strength giving out so 
that he must lie down upon the ground, he 
begged his comrades not to incur danger by 
waiting with him, but to keep on their The death 
way, and he said to one of them, "^^'^y^ 
" Tell my father that I expect in a few hours 
to be in eternity, and am not afraid to die." So 
they left him alone in the forest and nothing 
more was heard of him. The survivors of this 
expedition were rewarded with extensive grants 
of land on the mountain ridges between Lan- 
caster and the Connecticut River, which down 
to that time were a howling wilderness, and it 
was in this way that Petersham and others of 
the hill towns in that region originated. 

For half a century, until its memory was ob- 
scured by the incidents of the Revolutionary 
War, Lovewell's fight was a popular theme with 
the New England farmers. Ballads as long 
as " Chevy Chase " were written about it, and 
perhaps a few verses should be quoted in this 
connection. 

*♦ Then spake up Captain Lovewell, when first the fight be- 
gan, 
* Fight on, my valiant heroes, you see they fall like rain ! ' 
For, as we are informed, the Indians were so thick, 
A man could scarcely fire a gun, and not some of them hit. 



248 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 



Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die ; 
They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded good young 

Frye, 
Who was our English chaplain : he many Indians slew. 
And some of them he scalped, when bullets round him 

flew."i 

As for this worthy young chaplain, he was 
mourned by the fair Susanna Rogers, daughter 
of the minister at Boxford, to whom he was be- 
trothed. She afterward wrote a long monody 
which thus begins : — 

•' Assist, ye Muses, help my quill 
While floods of tears does down distil. 
Not from mine eyes alone, but all 
That hears the sad and doleful fall 
Of that young student, Mr. Frye, 
Who in his blooming youth did die." 

Such incidents as the destruction of Nor- 
ridgewock and Lovewell's fight occurred in 
what was reckoned as an interval of peace be- 
tween the second and third great intercolonial 
wars. 

We may now pass over twenty years and 
make some mention of the most important 
event that marked in America the war of the 
Austrian Succession, which began with the seiz- 
ure of Silesia by Frederick the Great in 1740, 

^ [The whole of this ballad is given in Hart's Americati 
History told by Cotitemporaries, ii. 344-346.] 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 249 

and ended with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1748. 

On the southeast side of Cape Breton Island, 
in a very commanding position, was a small 
town which had been known as English Har- 
bour, but which in the many vicissitudes of 
Acadia had passed into the hands of the French 
and had been by them christened 
Louisburg, after the king. After the 
treaty of Utrecht, the French refused to sur- 
render Cape Breton Island on the ground that 
the name " Acadia " applied only to Nova 
Scotia in the strictest sense, excluding the adja- 
cent islands. About 1720 the French began 
fortifying this place, and went on until they had 
spent a sum equivalent to more than 1 1 0,000,000 
of our modern money, and had made it one of 
the strongest places in the world, scarcely sur- 
passed by Quebec or Gibraltar. With refer- 
ence to Canada, France, and the West Indies, 
this place occupied a central position. It 
blocked the way to any English ascent of the 
St. Lawrence, such as had been attempted in 
1690 and 17 1 1, and it afforded an admirable 
base of supplies from which a powerful French 
squadron might threaten Boston or any other 
English city upon the Atlantic coast. 

It was in 1744 that France and England 
were dragged into the war between Austria and 



250 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Prussia, and no sooner had the news arrived in 
America than Duquesnel, the French com- 
mander of Louisburg, sent a squadron to surr 
prise and capture such EngHsh ports in Nova 
Scotia as might be found insufficiently guarded. 
The Httle port of Canseau was at once taken, 
and an energetic, but fruitless attack was made 
upon Port Royal. A certain number of prison- 
ers who had been taken from Canseau to Louis- 
burg were returned in the autumn of 1744, and 
they sent such messages to Governor Shirley as 
led him to believe that a prompt attack 

The project . , -"^ . / 

to capture upon Louisburg itseJr might prove 
Louis urg successful. Perhaps the first person to 
entertain such a scheme seriously was William 
Vaughan, a graduate of Harvard in 1722, whose 
father had been lieutenant-governor of New 
Hampshire. Vaughan had an estate on the 
Damariscotta River, and did a brisk trade in 
lumber and fish. There was imminent danger 
that Louisburg might work the destruction of 
the EngHsh fisheries, and Vaughan, who was dar- 
ing to the verge of foolhardiness, thought it a 
good plan to anticipate such a calamity by captur- 
ing the impregnable fortress. So bold was the 
project that Parkman gives to his chapter on this 
subject the simple heading, " A Mad Scheme." * 
Fortunately, Shirley was himself a man of cour- 
age and resource. After a conversation with 

* {^Ha/f Century of Cotifiict, ii. 78-107.] 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 251 

Vaughan, Shirley informed his legislature that 
he had a proposal to make of such great impor- 
tance that he wished them before receiving it to 
take an oath of secrecy. Shirley had shown 
much tact in avoiding dissensions with his 
legislature, and this extraordinary request was 
granted, but when the Assembly came to con- 
sider the question of attacking Louisburg with- 
out assistance from British arms, the Assembly 
deemed the proposal chimerical, and voted to 
reject it. Nothing daunted, however, Shirley 
returned to the attack, and with the active co- 
operation of many merchants who felt that their 
business absolutely demanded the reduction of 
the French stronghold, he succeeded at last in 
obtaining a majority of one vote in the Assem- 
bly. The next step was to seek aid rpj^^ ^^^ 
from the other colonies, but only New England 
Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Con- dertake the 
necticut gave favourable responses. ^""'^^ 
Connecticut and New Hampshire furnished 
each 500 men, and Rhode Island furnished the 
sloop of war Tartar. Massachusetts supplied 
3000 men, and Shirley selected William Pep- 
perell to command the expedition. Pepperell 
was a very wealthy merchant of Kittery, who 
had served as justice of the peace and as a mili- 
tia officer of various grades, ending with colonel. 
He was by no means a genius, but a man of 
energy, good sense, and tact. He was now 



262 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

raised to the rank of lieutenant-general, and 
Roger Wolcott of Connecticut was commis- 
sioned major-general and appointed second in 
command. Pepperell's good sense was svifficient 
to make him doubt the possibility of success ; 
and the Rev. George Whitefield, when asked 
to furnish a motto for one of the flags, suggested 
Nil desperandum Chris to duce, or, in other words, 
There is room for hope when Christ is leader, 
which, under the circumstances, does not seem 
to indicate a very exuberant confidence on the 
part of the great preacher. 

As for a naval force, it was always possible 
to extemporize something of the sort in New 
The naval England, where almost every seaport 
force j^^j citizens ready to venture money 

in privateering, or perhaps in equipping expe- 
ditions for capturing privateers from French- 
men and Spaniards. The force collected for the 
Louisburg expedition consisted of one new 24- 
gun frigate and twelve smaller vessels, mostly 
sloops of from 8 to 20 guns. This was a ludi- 
crous force for the purpose assigned ; one French 
line-of-battle ship could easily have destroyed 
the whole of it. To put 4000 men upon Cape 
Breton Island without an adequate naval force 
to insure their retreat might easily entail their 
starvation or capture. More ships must be had, 
and Shirlev sent a message to Commodore Peter 
Warren, at the island of Antigua, requesting 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 253 

assistance. Warren was inclined to give the aid 
required, but a council of war overruled him, 
and he declined ; but Shirley had wisely pro- 
vided another string to his bow, and had writ- 
ten some time before to the Duke of Newcastle, 
Secretary of State, pointing out the great danger 
to the fisheries and the Acadian ports from the 
proximity of Louisburg. It was this Duke of 
Newcastle who knew so little about Ameri- 
can affairs that, one day when he was told that 
Annapolis must be fortified, replied, " Annap- 
oHs, Annapolis ! Oh, yes, Annapolis must be 
defended ; to be sure, Annapolis should be de- 
fended. Where is Annapolis ? " ^ Fortunately, 
this amiable secretary's zeal was better than his 
knowledge, and he promptly wrote to Com- 
modore Warren, ordering him to sail for Bos- 
ton and do what he could to help the cause. 
Warren accordingly sailed with one line-of-bat- 
tle ship and two 44-gun frigates. While on the 
way he met a Boston vessel which informed 
him that Pepperell's force had already sailed, 
so Warren changed his course and joined the 
expedition at Canseau. Perhaps Pepperell had 
been precipitate, but in point of fact The French 
this headlong speed was the salvation ^^'■p'''^'='i 
of the enterprise. The French were practi- 

■^ [Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George 
//.,i. 396.] 



254 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

cally taken unawares ; for although rumours of 
the scheme had reached them, they had been 
incHned to laugh them to scorn. What likeli- 
hood was there of an enemy attacking them 
with any hope ? Their batteries mounted at 
least 150 heavy guns, against which the pro- 
vincial assailants brought a vastly inferior arma- 
ment in size and strength. The British ships, 
however, constituted a powerful reinforcement. 
The French garrison consisted of 560 French 
regulars and Swiss mercenaries, with about 1400 
Canadian militia, some 2000 in all. 

The New Englanders effected a landing on 
the I St of May, and immediately laid siege to 
the town. On the next day Vaughan led 400 
men behind a line of hills to a point where 
there were large magazines of naval stores. 
These he set on fire ; and what with the pitch 
and tar and other such combustibles, the smoke 
that came up and floated over the town was 
something quite tremendous. One effect upon 
The Grand the French was absurd. Near the 
Jo^nedTn''^''"' buming stores was a large fortifica- 
panic tion known as the Grand Battery, 

mounting 30 heavy guns. As the thick clouds 
of smoke rolled up and enveloped this battery, 
the defenders were seized with panic and aban- 
doned it without firing a shot ; so that when 
Vaughan's men passed it, observing the pro- 
found quiet, they reconnoitred for a moment 









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NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 255 

and then exultingly marched in. So hastily 
had the French departed that they left an im- 
mense quantity of ammunition as a present 
for Vaughan's men, while the cannon were so 
poorly spiked that the gunsmith, Seth Pome- 
roy, had them all ready for use the next morn- 
ing. So that our New Englanders could now 
bombard the town with cannon and shot pro- 
vided by the most Christian king. 

This capture of the Grand Battery was some- 
thing on which the besiegers had no right to 
count, for if it had been properly defended they 
probably could not have taken it. As it was, its 
loss by the French probably decided the issue 
of the whole conflict. The New England troops 
pressed matters with vigour, and at the end of 
a week demanded the surrender of the place, 
but the time had not yet come. On May 19 
a French line-of-battle ship arrived upon the 
scene heavily laden with material of „ . 

•' _ Capture or a 

war, and on appVoaching the town French line- 
she encountered one of the English °" *" ^ '^ 
ships of smaller calibre, which, retreating before 
her, lured her within reach of the whole Brit- 
ish fleet. She was soon surrounded and cap- 
tured, and all her material of war passed into 
the hands of the besiegers. Presently the lat- 
ter received a great reinforcement by the arrival 
of eight British seventy-fours, under cover of 
which the troops were able to establish new 



256 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

batteries at various points. By the middle of 
June there was scarcely a house in the town 
that had not been more or less riddled by shot 
and shell. The British fleet held the harbour 
closely invested, and looo scaling ladders were 
made ready for a grand attack. This was too 
Louisburg much for the Frenchmen, and on 
june"i'^r'* the 17th of June this famous fortress 
1745 was surrendered. The mad scheme 

of Vaughan and Shirley had become a sober re- 
ality. When the news was disseminated abroad 
the civilized world was dumb with amazement. 
For the first time it waked up to the fact that 
a new military power had grown up in America. 
One of the strongest fortresses on the face of 
the earth had surrendered to a force of New 
England militia. Pepperell was at once cre- 
ated a baronet, being the only native Ameri- 
can who ever attained that rank. Warren was 
promoted to the grade of admiral. Louisburg 
Square in Boston commemorates the victory. 
Some twenty-five years ago, when we were re- 
building the eastern transept of Harvard Col- 
lege Library, I discovered in a gloomy corner 
an iron cross about thirty inches in height, 
which had stood in the market-place at Louis- 
A relic of burg and was brought to Cambridge 
Louisburg ag a trophy. I thought it a pity to 
hide such a thing, so I had it gilded and set 
up over the southern entrance to the library, 



NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 251 

where it remained several years, until one night 
some silly vandals, presumed to be students, 
succeeded in detaching this heavy mass of iron 
and carrying it away.^ 

^ [Fortunately it has since been returned, and is now in 
the Hbrary.T 



VIII 
BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 

THE treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle did very- 
little to set matters at rest in North 
America; it provided only a short 
breathing spell before the numerous unsettled 
The treaty questions gave rise to another and far 
of Aix-ia- greater war. The treaty did little or 
^^^ ^ nothing toward marking out bounda- 
ries either at the east in Acadia, or at the west 
toward the Ohio valley, and it was in the latter 
region that the next great storm was to burst. 
By 1748 the schemes of La Salle had developed 
as far as they were ever destined to do. A 
thriving colony had been founded near the 
mouth of the Mississippi River, and that region 
was connected with Canada by a straggling 
series of fortified villages at great distances 
apart. Such places were Kaskaskia and Caho- 
kia, as well as Fort Chartres in the Illinois 
country, and Detroit. 

But the French were now beginning to feel 
the disadvantage of scarcity of numbers dis- 
tributed over long exterior lines. Every year 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 259 

that brought them closer to contact with the 
English made this disadvantage more apparent. 
Since La Salle's time a great change had come 
over the land. In his day, Pennsylvania was 
merely the banks of the Delaware River, while 
the Maryland and Virginia settlements „, 

•' '-' . 1 he spread 

were confined to the tidewater re- oftheEng- 
gions ; but by 1748 not only had 
these English populations spread for many miles 
into the interior, but a fresh migration from 
Europe, conducted on a greater scale than any 
of its predecessors, had introduced into the mid- 
dle Appalachian region an active and aggressive 
population. Of the 3,000,000 inhabitants of the 
United States in 1776, at least one The Scotch- 
sixth part were Presbyterians who had ^"^'^^ 
come from the north of Ireland since 1720.^ 
Along with these there was a considerable pop- 
ulation of Protestant Germans who had come at 
about the same time. By far the greater part 
of this population had passed through the old 
settled seaboard districts and made homes for 
itself on what was then the western frontier ; that 
is to say, the Alleghany region of Pennsylvania, 

1 [Cf. on the Scotch-Irish, Fiske, Old Virginia and her 
Neighbours, ii. 456-462 ; The Dutch and (Quaker Colonies, 
ii. 410-414 ; and Mr. C. A. Hanna's elaborate work. The 
Scotch-Irish, or the Scot in North Britain, North Ire Ian dy 
and North America, 2 vols.. New York, 1902,] 



260 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. From 
this population came some of the most hardy 
and enterprising pioneers of the old west, such 
men as Daniel Boone, James Robertson, and 
John Sevier the Huguenot ; for in this move- 
ment we find the name of many a Protestant 
Frenchman enlisted under the banner of St. 
George, By 1 748 the settled English population 
was fast approaching the Appalachian ranges, 
and the more mobile company of hunters, trap- 
The pioneers P^^^^ fur-tradcrs, and other pioneers 
passtheAUe- were passing beyond them and fast 

ghanies , . , . , , 

makmg their mark upon the western 
country. A company had already been formed 
in Virginia for the improvement of lands on the 
Ohio River, and in this company were inter- 
ested some of the most prominent men in the 
colony, including two brothers of George Wash- 
ington. Some of the pioneers were pressing for- 
ward to make homes in the wilderness where 
afterward grew up the two great commonwealths 
of Kentucky and Tennessee ; but that stage was 
only realized three years later. Meanwhile as 
the Indian trade was lucrative, and hunting had 
its charms, all the restless spirits who preferred 
life in the wilderness to life on plantations were 
finding their way through the picturesque defiles 
of the mountains down the broad grassy slopes 
through which flowed the western rivers. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 261 

Now this advance of the EngHsh frontier was 
an advance against the centre of the whole 
French position. In those days, as at This advance 
present, there were two great routes, oftheEng- 

, , - ... f. lish a men- 

wnether for mihtary purposes or tor ace to the 
trade, between the Atlantic seaboard ^'^^^'^^ 
and the Mississippi valley. One of these was 
from Albany to the Niagara River, and thence 
westward either to the north or to the south of 
Lake Erie. The other was from Philadelphia 
or Baltimore to Pittsburg, and thence down the 
Ohio River. It followed, therefore, that if the 
English could firmly hold both the Niagara 
River and the junction between the Allegheny 
and the Monongahela, where Pittsburg now 
stands, it would be in their power to strike at 
the centre of the long exterior line held by the 
French, and forever to cut Louisiana asunder 
from Canada. By degrees the more far-sighted 
Frenchmen who administered the affairs of Can- 
ada had been taking in the alarming character 
of fhe situation. Since the early part of the cen- 
tury the influence of the Frenchmen ^j^^ p^^^^j^ 
over the Indian tribes had relatively influence 
diminished. They held as firmly as Indians 
ever the alliance of the northern Al- '^^'^^"^^ 
gonquins, from the Micmacs of Nova Scotia to 
the Ojibways of Lake Superior, and at one time 
in the early part of the eighteenth century their 



262 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

influence had waxed strong even among their 
ancient enemies of the Long House. The per- 
suasive tongues of the Jesuits had even won 
converts among the Mohawks, a small colony of 
whom they had established at Caughnawaga on 
the St. Lawrence River, a short distance above 
Montreal. These Caughnawagas were useful as 
middle men in the trade between the remote 
northwest and the province of New York by 
way of Lake Champlain, and they were also of 
considerable service as spies to report in Canada 
the affairs of New York. These circumstances 
led William Burnet, the able governor of New 
The founding York, to build a fortress at Oswego in 
of Oswego iy22 upon land which he bought for 
the purpose from the Six Nations. As the New 
York Assembly was as froward and penny wise 
as usual, Burnet cut the Gordian knot by pay- 
ing the expenses out of his own pocket. This 
founding of Oswego was an event of prime im- 
portance in the history of the United States, 
inasmuch as it diverted the main current of the 
northwestern fur-trade from the valley of the 
St. Lawrence to the valley of the Mohawk, and 
thus greatly strengthened the hold of the Eng- 
lish upon the Long House all the way from the 
Hudson River to Lake Erie.^ In 1738 this 
English influence was still further increased by 
1 [W. L. Stone, Life and Times of Sir William Johnson, i. 
30-32-] 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 263 

the arrival of that remarkable man, William 
Johnson, a native of Ireland, who waxed rich in 
the Indian trade, built for himself two strong- 
holds in the Mohawk valley, and acquired such 
a reputation among the Mohawks that they 
revered him like one of their natural chiefs. 
The influence exerted upon the In- sirwiiiiam 
dians by Johnson and by the Schuy- Johnson 
lers of Albany, as well as through the trading 
station at Oswego, made it probable that in the 
event of a conflict with France the English could 
control the Niagara River. 

Still more important, however, was the moun- 
tainous site of Pittsburg, the Gateway of the 
West, as it used to be called ; for it was in that 
neighbourhood that the English were already 
pressing westward and winning control over the 
numerous and powerful tribes of the Ohio val- 
ley. Among these should especially be men- 
tioned the Delawares and Shawnees upon the 
upper Ohio ; and with them were associated the 
remnants of the Hurons, generally known as 
Wyandottes, and likewise a group which had 
migrated from the Long House, apparently con- 
sisting chiefly of Senecas, but called by the fron- 
tiersmen Mingos. Westward of all these came 
the Miamis, and then the Illinois. Late in the 
seventeenth century all these tribes had been 
invaded, tormented, and made more or less trib- 



264 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

utary by the Long House. Whether they ac- 
knowledged the relationship or not, the Long 
House asserted it whenever an occasion offered. 
French influence over these tribes had never 
been strong except among the Illinois. On the 
English other hand, the English traders as 

the'^ohio ^^^y ^^^^ ^"^° ^^^ ^^^° valley were 
valley carcful to propitiatc the natives, and 

succeeded in establishing a strong influence over 
them, especially the tribes of the upper Ohio. 
Obviously, if this sort of thing were to go on, 
it would not be long before the English would 
hold the whole stretch of country from Oswego 
south of Lake Erie to Cahokia as firmly as the 
French held the country from Montreal to the 
Sault Ste. Marie ; in other words, the English 
would hold both the great routes between east 
and west, and New France would be severed in 
twain. 

This situation was distinctly realized by the 
Marquis de la Galissoniere, who governed Can- 
ada in 1749; and that year he sent a party of 
about 150 men to inspect the country between 
the Niagara and Ohio rivers, to take possession 
of it in the name of the French king, and to as- 
certain the sentiments of the native tribes. The 
command of this party was entrusted to a cap- 
tain and chevalier named Celoron de Bienville. 
They went up the St. Lawrence as far as Fort 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 265 

Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario in canoes 
which they carried up by the bank of the Niag- 
ara River, and launching them at a safe distance 
above the falls, made their way into Lake Erie. 
Then for seven days they forced their way 
through the dense forest to the placid waters 
of Chautauqua Lake, and after landing where 
Jamestown now stands, and struggling once 
more with the tangled woods, they reached the 
Allegheny River. At that point of their route 
on the apth of July they took possession of 
the country in the name of Louis XV. This 
act of taking possession was performed ceioron takes 
as follows : The royal arms of France possession of 
stamped upon a tin plate were nailed '^^^j^^ ^°^ 
to a tree. At the foot of the tree a Louis xv., 
plate of lead was buried, upon which '^''•^ 
was an inscription stating that Monsieur Cele- 
ron had buried this plate ■ ' as a token of re- 
newal of possession heretofore taken of the 
aforesaid river Ohio, of all streams that fall into 
it, and all lands on both sides to the source of 
the aforesaid streams, as the preceding kings 
of France have enjoyed or ought to have en- 
joyed it, and which they have upheld by force 
of arms and by treaties, notably by those of 
Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle." ^ It 

^ [A facsimile of this plate is given in Winsor, Narrative 
and Critical Hist, of America, v. 9.] 



266 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

will be observed that this is the usual style 
which France has maintained for some centu- 
ries. Whenever her borders have been extended 
it has always been officially declared to be sim- 
ply taking possession of what was hers already. 
Upon various other spots as they descended 
the river our party of Frenchmen buried these 
leaden tablets, the last place being at the mouth 
of the Great Miami. Some of the plates have 
since then been dug up and preserved in mu- 
seums. The general demeanour of the Indians 
through whose towns the Frenchmen passed 
was polite, but suspicious and unsatisfactory. It 
was evident that the English influence was 
strong throughout the upper country drained 
by the Ohio. When Celoron reached the Great 
Miami he turned his course up that river and 
Celoron presently came to a village of the 

among the Miamis, Tuled by a chieftain who was 
"""'^ a firm friend to the English, in so 

much that they commonly called him " Old 
Britain," but the French oddly called him " La 
Demoiselle," or " The Maiden." Whether he 
was faint-hearted, as such an epithet might seem 
to imply, or perhaps more delicate of feature 
than others of his race, we cannot say ; but as 
to his capacity for lying, we are not left in doubt. 
His home had formerly been upon the Maumee 
River, not far from the site of F'ort Wayne, and 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 267 

he had now moved close down to the Ohio, 
apparently in order to be in the highway of 
English trade. Celoron heaped gifts upon him 
and urged him to take his men back to their 
old home on the Maumee. The astute Demoi- 
selle accepted the presents and was profuse in 
promises, but so far was he from re- ^^^ Miamis 
tiring that he gathered into his new under English 

• 1 1 J influence 

town as many recruits as he could 
summon.^ The English called it Pickawillany. 
It became one of the principal Indian towns 
of the west, completely under English influ- 
ence, and was a serious obstacle to all French 
schemes in that quarter. For some time Cana- 
dian officials intrigued and fulminated against 
Pickawillany, until at length in the summer 
of 1752 Charles de Langlade, a young French 
trader of Green Bay, led a large The French 
force of Ojibways and Ottawas against Mfa^^'rad- 
the obnoxious town. They took it '"e village 
by surprise, slaughtered many of the defend- 
ers, and burned the town, crowning the work 
by a hilarious supper in which they feasted 
upon the boiled carcase of the Demoiselle him- 
self. 

Considering the vital importance of the Gate- 

* [A facsimile of the map of Father Bonnecamp, the chap- 
lain of the expedition, is given in Winsor, Narr. and Crit. 
Hist, of Amer.fV. 569.] 



268 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

way of the West, it seems very strange that 
the EngHsh, who were then in possession of it, 
did not build and maintain a strong fortress 
there, but in truth the spot was claimed at once 
by Virginia and by Pennsylvania, and in neither 
of these provinces did the legislature wish to 
invest money in property that might be adjudged 
to belong to another province. The swarm of 
difficulties that surrounded this unsettled ques- 
tion sufficed to prevent all action. Meanwhile, 
a new governor came to Canada, the Marquis 
Duquesne, who saw clearly that New France 
The Marquis must either control the Gateway of 
Duquesne ^j^g Wcst, or givc Up all hold upon 
the Ohio valley and submit to see Canada 
severed from Louisiana. Accordingly, in the 
spring of 1753 Duquesne sent out a force of 
1 500 men commanded by an able veteran named 
Marin. This little army crossed Lake Erie at 
some distance to the west of Niagara River, 
and landed at Presqu'Isle, where the town of 
Erie now stands, and there they built a strong 
The French bloclchousc. From that point they 
expedition cut a road through the forest to the 
stream since known as French Creek, 
and there they erected a second blockhouse and 
called it Fort Le Baeuf Here they could re- 
sume their canoes and easily float down French 
Creek to the Allegheny River., and so on, if need 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 269 

be, to the Gulf of Mexico. At this point the 
French commander fell dangerously ill, and his 
place was taken by another skilful veteran, Le- 
gardeur de Saint-Pierre. 

By these active measures the French were 
gaining strength daily. It is true that the In- 
dians of the region they were entering were 
friends of the English, but the red man's pol- 
itics were apt to be of a vacillating sort, and 
truckling to strength was one of their „, . ^. 

O _ _ O I he Indians 

chief characteristics. They resembled between 
the politics of the famous Vicar of 
Bray, whose conduct was always guided by one 
unswerving principle, no matter what party 
might be uppermost, always to remain Vicar 
of Bray, sir. The red man was usually ready 
to follow the advice of Mr. Pickwick and shout 
with whichever mob shouted the loudest. This 
was seen in the conduct of a feathered potentate 
whom the English called the Half-King; he 
came out from his village with a show of fight, 
but soon made up his mind that discretion 
was the better part of valour. Fifteen hundred 
Frenchmen ! truly the white father at Quebec 
must be a mighty chief. Several tribes sent 
messages seeking to curry favour with the in- 
vaders. 

It was Duquesne's intention to have a third 
fort built at Venango, where French Creek flows 



270 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

into the Allegheny, and an advance party, com- 
manded by Joncaire, had arrived at that place 
and seized and fortified an English trading 
house there. Thus far had things proceeded in 
the early days of December, 1753, when one 
A chance cvcning as Joncaire and his friends 
meeting were sitting down to supper, some 

unbidden guests arrived upon the scene. The 
party consisted of Christopher Gist, a veteran 
trader who acted as guide, an Indian interpre- 
ter named Davison, a French interpreter named 
Vanbraam, and four wood rangers as servants. 
The person for whom this little party acted as 
escort was a tall and stately youth named George 
j^^.^j. Washington, a major in the Virginia 

George militia. Governor Dinwiddie of Vir- 

Washington ... , . , 

sent to warn giHia, WHO was Keepmg as keen a 
the French vvatch upon the Ohio valley from 
Williamsburg as Duquesne was keeping from 
Montreal, had heard of the crossing of Lake 
Erie by the French and their approach toward 
the Gateway of the West. To warn them off was 
a delicate matter, while to counteract their in- 
trigues with the Indians a wise head was called 
for. Washington had been in the employ of 
Lord Fairfax in surveying frontier land, and 
had made good use of the opportunities for 
studying Indians. Governor Dinwiddie, more- 
over, gave him credit for a clear-sightedness 
that nothing could hoodwink and a courage 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 271 

that nothing could daunt, and in this the wise 
old Scotchman was not deceived. 

After the party had sat down to supper and 
the wine had begun to circulate, the Frenchmen 
grew somewhat confidential, and with their po- 
litest smiles assured Washington that they in- 
tended to drive the English out of all ^j^^ p^^^^j^ 
that country; and they felt sure that boast of their 
they could do it, for although inferior ''^"^ 
in force, they more than made up for this by 
their quickness of movement. The next day 
Washington proceeded to Fort Le Boeuf, where 
he met the French commander, and gave him a 
polite letter from Dinwiddie expressing his sur- 
prise that he should thus venture to encroach 
upon English territory in time of peace. The 
old Frenchman treated Washington with ex- 
treme politeness, but said that he should feel it 
necessary to remain where he was until he should 
have had time to transmit Dinwiddie's letter to 
Montreal and get a reply from Governor Du- 
quesne. Washington's return to Virginia was 
marked with adventures and some hair-breadth 
escapes.^ When Governor Dinwiddie heard the 
results of his journey, which were not very dif- 

* [Washington's Journal of this expedition is in Sparks' s 
ed. of his works, ii. 432-447. For other reprints, see Win- 
sor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., v. 572. Gist's Journal is to be 
found in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3 ser. v. 101-108.] 



272 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

ferent from what he had anticipated, he made up 

his mind that as large a force as possible must 

be collected from Virginia and other 

Governor . i -i i 

Dinwiddle colonics, to advancc, while there was 
occ°up"the yet time, and occupy the Gateway 
Gateway of of the Wcst : but the governor of a 

the West . 

free English colony was at a great 
disadvantage as compared with a despotic gov- 
ernor of Canada. Dinwiddie must persuade his 
legislature, and he must notify other governors, 
who in turn must persuade their legislatures. 
We need not be surprised that the English 
were too late. Washington had selected the 
spot where Pittsburg now stands as the proper 
place for a commanding fortress, but scarcely 
had his men begun to work there when they 
were driven away by a superior force of French- 
men, who proceeded to build a stout fortress and 
call it Fort Duquesne. Well might the indig- 
nant Dinwiddie exclaim in a letter 

Duquesne 

anticipates Written at this time, "If our Assembly 
ngis y^^^ voted the money in November 
which they did in February, it 's more than 
probable the fort would have been built and 
garrisoned before the French had approached; 
but these things cannot be done without money. 
As there was none in our treasury, I have ad- 
vanced my own to forward the expedition ; and 
if the independent companies from New York 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 273 

come soon, I am in hopes the eyes of the other 
colonies will be opened ; and if they grant a 
proper supply of men, I hope we shall be able 
to dislodge the French or build a fort on that 
river." ^ When we read such letters as this and 
realize that through the whole seventy years 
of struggle with New France the difficulty was 
always the same, we surely cannot much wonder 
that the British minister at the beginning of 
Pontiac's war should have deemed it necessary 
to resort to such a measure as the Stamp Act. 
Americans should not forget that while that 
measure was ill-considered, the evil which it 
was designed to relieve was most flagrant and 
dangerous. 

In point of fact, in May, 1754, Dinwiddle's 
force on the frontier was only the Virginia regi- 
ment of about three hundred men The Virginia 
under Colonel Joshua Fry, with Ma- t^Fort"" 
jor Washington second in command. Duquesne 
Fry was detained by sickness at Will's Creek, 
about one hundred and forty miles from Fort 
Duquesne. The advance was slow and difficult, 
as it was necessary to cut roads through the 
virgin forests and over the mountains in order 
to drag cannon and wagons. An advance of a 
mile in a day was sometimes all that could 
be accomplished. In spite of these obstacles, 

^ [Parkman, Montcalm arid Wolfe, i. 144.] 



274 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Washington had crossed the mountains and 
encamped at a spot called Great Meadows 
with about one hundred and fifty men, when a 
message came to him from his friend the Half- 
King, saying that the French were upon the 
march to meet him. For two or three days 
Washington watched vigilantly for a surprise, 
and the reports that came in seemed to indicate 
that a French force was lurking in the neigh- 
bourhood. Presently the Half-King arrived 
„, ,. upon the scene, and as everything 

Washington . ,. , . 

surprises a mdicated that the enemy intended a 
French force gurpHsc, it was decided to find them 
if possible and inflict a counter surprise. The 
result was that presently the French were dis- 
covered in a ravine, and there was a brief fight 
in which the French commander, an ensign 
named Jumonville, was killed, with nine others, 
and the remaining twenty-two were captured. 
After it was all over some of the prisoners in- 
formed Washington that they were a party sent 
from Fort Duquesne by its commander, Con- 
treccEur, to carry a message to Washington. In 
point of fact, it was a scouting party intended 
to look out for any approaching party of Eng- 
lish, and to warn them to withdraw from this 
portion of New France. A great outcry was 
afterward raised by the French at what they 
chose to call perfidy on Washington's part, and 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 275 

an absurd story was circulated to the intent that 
he had fired upon a flag of truce. The whole 
case may, however, be properly summed up as 
a chance encounter between two forces engaged 
in actual hostilities before any declaration of 
war. Each side professed to be unwilling to 
force on hostilities, while each side was eager to 
strike the other as soon as a proper occasion 
offered. 

After this affray Washington built a rude en- 
trenchment at Great Meadows which he called 
Fort Necessity. A few days after- port 
ward news came of Colonel Fry's Necessity 
death, and presently other troops arrived from 
Virginia and South Carolina, until Washington 
was in command of some three hundred men 
besides about one hundred and fifty Indians 
under the Half-King and others. 

Meanwhile, the authorities in Canada had 
not been idle, and the garrison of Fort Du- 
quesne now numbered fourteen hundred men. 
A force of about six hundred under Coulon 
de Villiers, brother of the slain Jumonville, 
marched up the Monongahela in quest of 
Washington. Villiers arrived at Great Meadows 
on a rainy day, and a lively firing was 

. . The battle 

kept Up until dark. By that time the of Fort 
English found their powder nearly ^"""'^'^ 
exhausted and their guns foul, while their food 



276 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

was gone and starvation faced them. Washing- 
ton therefore accepted the terms offered by the 
French commander, that the English should 
march away with the honours of war, with drums 
beating and colours flying, and that they should 
be protected from insult, while on the other 
hand, they should surrender their prisoners of 
Jumonville's party. So the English marched 
away. It was not a very murderous affair, and 
Washington's friend, the red man Half-King, 
sarcastically gave it as his opinion that the 
Frenchmen had behaved like cowards and the 
English like fools. It was on the 4th of July 
The English that young Washington began his 
retreat doleful retreat across the mountains 

into Virginia. The situation seemed to have 
nothing to retrieve it. At this first outbreak of 
the struggle with France the enemy seemed to 
be carrying everything before them. The Gate- 
way of the West was in their possession, and 
the red flag of England waved nowhere within 
the limits of what they chose to call New 
France. Yet Washington even at that early age 
was already a marvel of fortitude and may have 
consoled himself with the thought that better 
days were coming. 

Before he was permitted, however, to see such 
better days, the cup of disaster must be drained 
to its dregs. Nothing could be clearer than that 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 211 

the possession of Fort Duquesne by the French 
and their infliction of a sHght defeat upon the 
EngHsh would have an immediate and disas- 
trous effect upon most of the Indian tribes in 
the Ohio valley. Dinwiddle therefore at once 
prepared to assume the offensive and carry the 
war on a larger scale into the enemy's country. 
But he found himself impeded at every step by 
the Virginia House of Burgesses, Those 
canny planters were loath to put much money 
into the governor's hands lest he should make 
an improper use of it. At one time they would 
refuse the appropriation asked for, at Niggardii- 
another time they would grant a sum provbdai 
too small to be of much use, and yet Assemblies 
again they would grant a sufficient sum, while 
attaching to the bill a rider concerning some 
long-disputed question which they knew would 
elicit an angry veto from the governor. Simi- 
larly in Pennsylvania the Assembly refused 
money for military purposes in order to wring 
from the governor some concession with regard 
to the long-vexed question of taxing proprietary 
lands. Moreovers, the Assembly at Philadel- 
phia was not quite sure that it was worth while 
to raise troops for taking Fort Duquesne from 
the French if it should therebv fall into the 
possession of Virginia. It was with difficulty 
that these representative bodies could be made 
to see anything that required any breadth of 



278 NEIV FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

vision. Moreover, they were used to contend- 
ing against their governors ; in the eyes of most 
representatives that was the sole object for 
which legislatures existed, but they were not 
accustomed to devote much thought to the 
French as enemies, nor had they as yet learned 
very well what it meant to be invaded by In- 
dians. On the other hand. New York and 
The defence Massachusetts wcre somewhat more 
otthecoio- forward inasmuch as they had a keen 

nies depend- _ ■' ^ 

entonthe pcrccption of what was involved in 
governors warfare against Frenchmen and In- 
dians. Here too, however, the zeal of the gov- 
ernors far outran the efficiency of the legisla- 
tures. Shirley, in particular, a veteran lawyer 
of great sense and more than average insight, 
appreciated the nature of the threatened strug- 
gle more keenly than any of the other gov- 
ernors except Dinwiddie. 

In fact, something was happening of the sort 
that people never quite see until they can look 
backward. The English colonies had insensibly 
drifted into a continental state of things. The 
crisis had been hastened by the wholesale in- 
coming of the Scotch-Irish and Germans. The 
bulging of the centre of the English line toward 
the Ohio valley had brought things to a pass 
where it was no longer a conflict between New 
France and New England in the narrower sense, 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 279 

but between New France and the entire world 
of English America. Under these circumstances 
the next war that should break out must be a 
continental affair ; it would concern Louisiana 
and Georgia as well as New York and ^, , ^ 

" The need or 

Canada ; and yet, here were the peo- a union of 
pie of these colonies profoundly 
ignorant and almost culpably careless of each 
other's interests, ready to throw away all the 
advantages of numerical strength and interior 
lines and give away the victory to an inferior 
enemy rather than cooperate with one another 
in defeating him. Obviously, the crying need 
of the time was some feasible plan for a federal 
Union. In the event of a war, it was important 
to insure the aid of the Six Nations, and to 
this end it was necessary to let them know how 
much support they might expect from the Eng- 
lish colonies. For this purpose a congress was 
called to assemble at Albany in the summer of 
1754 in order to consider the situation. It was 
the second congress that assembled on Ameri- 
can soil, the first having been the one called by 
Leisler at New York in 1690.^ It is significant 
that even on this verge of a mighty conflict only 
the four New England colonies with New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Maryland were represented 

^ [Cf. Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies, ii. 228, 
and Frothingham, Rise of the Republic of the United States, 
pp. 90-93.] 



280 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

at the Albany Congress. The deHberations were 
chiefly memorable for a plan of union drawn 
The Albany Up by Benjamin Franklin which, if 
Congress j^. j^^^^ been adopted, might perhaps 
have averted the Revolution of twenty years 
later/ This plan would have created a true 
federal Union, the government of which would 
have operated directly upon individuals, as our 
present federal Union does, and not upon states 
only, as the Continental Congress did. Frank- 
lin's plan would have created a Continental 
government with taxing power for continental 
purposes only, leaving otherwise intact the local 
self-government. There would have been a 
president or governor-general appointed by the 
Crown to serve as chief executive in purely 
continental matters.^ 

This plan of federation was rejected with small 

ceremony by the colonies. In some cases no 

notice was taken of it ; in others it was treated 

with contempt. There were few peo- 

Franldin s ' . ' . 

plan of union plc as yct who saw any meaning in 
rejected ^j^^ demand for a closer union, and 

nothing but a long experience of distress and 
disaster would have taught them the need of it. 
This rejection of the Albany plan left the col- 

^ [Such seems to have been Franklin's opinion in 1789 ; 
see Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, etc., p. 149, note.] 

^ [See Bigelow, Franklin'' s Works, ii. 355-375 ; Froth- 
ingham, Rise of the Republic, etc., pp. I34-I5i.j 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 281 

onies In a very embarrassing position. On the 
brink of a great war there was no single power 
in the country which could raise men and money 
for the common defence. Of course, there were 
but few who anticipated war, or were alive to 
the situation. It was at this moment that it 
occurred to Shirley that if the colonists could 
not create for themselves a continental taxing 
power it wotild be necessary for Parliament to 
fulfil that function. This would involve a direct 
tax, and while Shirle/ recognized the American 
unwillingness to submit to taxation by any other 
authority than that of the colonial Assemblies, 
he nevertheless thought that a stamp tax might 
be received with acquiescence because it had so 
few annoying features. It was by such consid- 
erations as these that the British official mind 
was prepared for the Stamp Act of eleven vears 
later. As it was, the colonies had to flounder 
through a great war as best they could. 

The representations of the royal governors 
and of the viceroy of Canada created some ex- 
citement both in England and in E^gi^^j^^j 
France. In England a couple of regi- France send 

\ c r \ 11 troops to 

ments, each or nve hundred men, were America, 
shipped for Virginia under command '^55 
of Major- General Edward Braddock. When 
this was learned at Versailles a force of three 
thousand men was started for Canada under 



282 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Baron Dieskau. The health of Duquesne was 
faiHng, and with Dieskau's expedition there came 
a new viceroy for Canada, the last of her French 
governors, Vaudreuil, a younger son of the 
former governor of that name. The expedition 
did not get clear of European waters without 
adventure. It was well understood by the Brit- 
ish government that the squadron gathering at 
Brest had troops on board destined for Amer- 
ica. Accordingly, a powerful force of eighteen or 
twenty ships of the line was sent out to inter- 
cept and capture any French vessels bound for 
America. The greater part of the French squad- 
ron, however, got away, but three of its ships, 
having fallen behind through stress of weather, 
Ca ture of werc in the neighbourhood of Cape 
two French Racc whcn the British fleet overtook 
^ '^^ them. As the British ship Dunkirk 

came abreast of the French ship Alcide, a red 
flag was suddenly hoisted upon the British flag- 
ship as a signal for fighting ; whereupon the 
French captain of the Alcide called out, " Is this 
peace or war ? " He was answered by Richard 
Howe, captain of the Dunkirk, " I don't know ; 
but you 'd better get ready for war." Scarcely 
had the words been uttered when the Dun- 
kirk and other English ships opened fire, and 
the Alcide, with one of her companions, was 
forced to surrender. This little incident at 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 283 

sea was the naval counterpart to Washington's 
passage at arms with Jumonville in the moun- 
tains. 

It was in February, 1755? that General Brad- 
dock arrived at Governor Dinwiddie's house at 
Williamsburg. The spring was spent General 
in preparations for the campaign that Braddock 
was to wrest Fort Duquesne from the enemy 
and recover the Gateway of the West. The fig- 
ure of Braddock has long been well known to 
all Americans, — a British bulldog, brave, ob- 
stinate, and honest, but more than ordinarily 
dull in appreciating an enemy's methods, or in 
freeing himself from the precise traditions in 
which he had been educated. His first and 
gravest mistake, however, — that of underrating 
his Indian foe, — is one that has been shared by 
many commanders, to their confusion, and by 
many writers. The fighting qualities of the red 
man have often been ill appreciated, and in par- 
ticular he has been ignorantly accused of cow- 
ardice because of his stealthy methods Indian mode 
and unwillingness to fight in the open. °^ fighting 
In point of fact, his method of fighting was 
closely adapted to the physical conditions of the 
American wilderness, and it was just what was 
produced by survival of the fittest during thou- 
sands of years of warfare under such conditions. 
When white men came to America, they were at 



284 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

first able to wreak wholesale destruction upon 
the natives without regard to numbers or con- 
ditions. Such was the case when the Pequots, 
the Stamford Indians, and the Narragansetts 
were swept out pf existence/ This was largely 
because of the European superiority in arms, but 
in later days, when this disparity had been done 
away with, white men were apt to find Indians 
quite as formidable enemies as they cared to deal 
with, and in order to achieve success it was found 
necessary to adopt the Indian methods, aban- 
doning solid columns and lines of battle, so as 
to fight in loose order and behind trees or earth- 
works. It is interesting to see that in these later 
English '^^y^ when the increase in the power 

regulars and prccision of death-dealing wea- 

iU prepared , , . i i i 

for such pons has greatly mcreased the danger- 
tactics ousness of the battlefield, there has 

been a tendency to recur to Indian methods in 
so far as concerns looseness of order and the 
use of various kinds of cover. In the eighteenth 
century there was nobody so ill fitted to fight 
with Indians as a European regular, trained in 
European manuals of war and inured to Euro- 
pean discipline. Braddock's fatuity was well 
illustrated in his reply to Dr. Franklin, when 
the latter informed him that the Indians, as 

^ [Fiske, The Begi?ifn?igs of New England, pp. 1 5 7- 
162.] 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 285 

antagonists, were by no means to be despised: 
" These savages may, indeed," said Braddock, 
" be a formidable enemy to your raw American 
militia, but upon the king's regular and disci- 
plined troops, sir, it is impossible that they 
should make any impression."^ 

Many stories of Braddock's arrogance and ill- 
temper have come down to us, but if we con- 
sider the obstacles that were thrown in the way 
of military promptness, by which zealous men 
like Shirley and Dinwiddle were so Braddock's 
often goaded to anger, we need not ^difficulties 
wonder that Braddock's temper was sometimes 
not altogether at its best. He scolded a good 
deal about the legislatures, and sometimes let 
fall exasperating remarks about the lack of 
zeal and rectitude in public servants. For 
such insinuations there was sometimes appar- 
ent ground, especially when the member of a 
legislature showed himself more intent upon an- 
noying the governor than upon attacking the 
enemy. 

The energetic Shirley made a visit to Brad- 
dock's camp at Alexandria, in the course of 
which a comprehensive plan of procedure was 
agreed upon, which involved operations on the 
Niagara River and Lake Champlain and the 

* l^Ztfe of Benjamin Franklin, zvritten by himself. Edited 
by John Bigelow, Philadelphia, 1884, i, 425.] 



286 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

northeastern frontier as well as in the Alleghany 
Mountains. P'or the present we will confine 
our story to the latter. 

At the outset a mistake was made in the 
choice of a route. For a force like Braddock's, 
wagons were indispensable, and wagons were 
far more common in Pennsylvania than in Vir- 
ginia. A route corresponding with the general 
Braddock direction of the Pennsylvania rail- 

should have j 1 J ^ l L L L 

landed at T03.a wouIq not Only have been much 
Philadelphia shorter than the route through Vir- 
ginia, but it would have been, at least in its earlier 
stages, a route through a population which could 
furnish wagons. By adopting this route Brad- 
dock would have made the Pennsylvanians feel 
some personal interest in the acquisition of Fort 
Duquesne ; whereas, when he decided to march 
through Virginia it only tended to confirm Penn- 
sylvanians in the impression that Fort Du- 
quesne, if conquered, was to pass into Virginian 
hands. After a while Benjamin Franklin went 
about among the farmers, and by pledging his 
own personal credit obtained a fair supply of 
horses and wagons.^ 

Braddock's force at length set out in de- 
tachments and marched along the banks of 
the Potomac River to the old trading station 

* [^Li/e of Betijamin Franklin, etc., edited by John Big- 
elow, i. 3 2 2. J 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 287 

of the Ohio Company known as Will's Creek. 
It had lately been fortified, and received the 
name of Fort Cumberland. This was the ren- 
dezvous of the army. The two regiments from 
England had been increased by further enlist- 
ments in Virginia of nine companies of militia 
of fifty men each to a total of fourteen hundred 
men. Braddock despised these militia, and had 
small respect either for partisan guerilla forces 
or for Indian auxiliaries. The services of the 
chief Scarroyaddy, or of the noted frontiersman 
Black Jack, were at his disposal at the cost of 
a few civil words only, but he treated these 
worthies so superciliously that they went off on 
business of their own. 

In spite of these instances of indiscretion, 
however, it is not correct to say, as has often 
been said, that Braddock neglected all 

, , . The march 

precaution and was drawn into an am- 
buscade. Such statements are samples of the 
kind of exaggeration that is apt to grow up 
about events that create great public excitement. 
Braddock made mistakes enough, but he was 
not absolutely a fool. During the whole of the 
march flanking parties were kept out on each 
side of the creeping column, while scouts in all 
directions ranged through the depths of the 
woods. The column, which consisted of about 
twenty-two hundred men, sometimes extended 



288 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

for four miles along a road hardly fit to be 
called a bridle-path, on the average scarcely four 
yards in width. The march began on June lo, 
and eight days later the force had advanced 
only thirty miles from Fort Cumberland. By 
that time the rear of the column was so heavily 
encumbered with sick men that its power of 
marching had almost come to an end. It was 
, therefore decided to leave with the 

A detach- 
ment sent on rear column of about one thousand 

in advance , r i i • i 

men most or the heavier wagons and 
other impedimenta, and to proceed somewhat 
more quicklv toward Fort Duquesne with an 
advance guard of twelve hundred. But in spite 
of this diminution of labour, the difficulties of 
the road were such that the yth of July had 
arrived when the advance column approached 
Turtle Creek, a stream that flows into the 
Monongahela about eight miles south of Fort 
Duquesne. Meanwhile, its progress had been 
detected and watched, as was to have been ex- 
pected, by French and Indian scouts. At the 
fortress Contrecoeur still governed, with Beau- 
jeu second in command. The force consisted 
of five or six hundred Frenchmen, partly reg- 
ulars and partly Canadian militia, with eight 
hundred Indians, some of them baptized con- 
verts from the northeast, some of them wild 
Ojibways led by Charles de Langlade, the 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 289 

conqueror of the Demoiselle, and the rest, 
Ottawas under their renowned chieftain, the 
long-headed and ferocious Pontiac. When the 
approach of Braddock's column to the mouth 
of Turtle Creek was announced at the French 
fortress Captain Beaujeu volunteered to go out 
with a strong party and lay an ambuscade for 
the English. With this end in view Beaujeu sets 
he took some two hundred and fifty "ay'the^Eng- 
Frenchmen and over six hundred In- I'sh 
dians and stole through the woods between the 
fortress and Turtle Creek, but he never suc- 
ceeded in preparing the desired ambuscade, nor 
did Braddock's force march into an ambuscade, 
in any proper sense of the word. So sensible 
was Braddock of the great danger of the road 
between Turtle Creek and Fort Duquesne, on 
the right bank of the Monongahela, Braddock's 
that he forded the latter stream and P'^^"""""^ 
proceeded down the opposite bank for five or 
six miles, when he again crossed the river and 
brought his column on to a rising ground along 
which the narrow road ran toward the fortress. 
His column was then in its usual condition : 
a few Virginian guides in front, then the advance 
under Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Gage, among 
whose men were two lieutenants destined in later 
days to play inglorious parts, — Horatio Gates 
and Charles Lee. Behind Gage came Sir John 



290 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

St. Clair with the working party, followed by a 
couple of cannon, and these, in turn, by the 
wagons with powder and tools. Behind these 
came the principal part of the column, while 
both flanks and rear were very strongly guarded 
with flanking parties. The situation would not 
have been particularly dangerous if the British 
regulars had known how to separate and fight 
under cover. It was owing to this internal fault- 
iness, and not to any ambush, that Braddock's 
column came to grief. 

When the opposing forces met it was simply 

the meeting of the two heads of columns in 

a narrow woodland road. Who can 

The battle r i i i-> > 

ever rorget that moment when Gage s 
light horsemen quickly fled back and those be- 
hind could catch a glimpse through the trees 
of a young Frenchman wearing a brilliant red 
gorget and bounding lightly along the road, 
till, on seeing his enemy, he turned and waved 
his hand ? That brief glimpse of Captain Beau- 
jeu at the moment of his death will forever 
live in history. At the third volley he dropped 
dead. Gage's men delivered fire with admirable 
coolness, but its effect was slight, for the enemy, 
in two bifurcating columns, passed to right and 
to left of the English, all the time pouring in 
a galling fire from behind trees and bushes. 
Never were the conditions of a battle more 
simple. The English were torn to pieces be- 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 291 

cause they stood in solid line where they could 
be seen ; and if anything were needed to make 
it impossible to miss them, it was their bright 
scarlet coats. On the other hand, no matter 
how diligently the British loaded and ^j^^ ^^ j.^j^ 
fired, they could see nothing to aim fail before 
at. One officer who had been in the 
thickest of the fight, literally wedged in among 
falling bodies, said after the battle that he had 
not caught sight of an Indian during the whole 
of the battle. They were fighting simply against 
puffs of smoke which seemed to come from all 
points of the compass. For a time the can- 
non were diligently plied and split many tree 
trunks. Many of the regulars fired wildly and 
hit their own comrades. The Virginians, who 
scattered and fought in Indian fashion, suffered 
but little and did more than their share of exe- 
cution. Some of the regulars tried to imitate 
these tactics, but wherever Braddock saw any- 
thing of the sort going on he would strike 
them with the flat of his sword and Bravery of 
force them back into the ranks. As fnj'^wa^- 
for the general himself, he performed '"8^" 
prodigies of valour, and was forever in the most 
exposed places, while he had four horses shot 
under him and at last fell from the fifth with 
one of his lungs badly torn by a bullet. Wash- 
ington's fighting was equally desperate. Two 
horses were killed under him and his clothes 



292 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

were partly torn from his back by bullets. He 
seemed to bear a charmed life. It is needless 
to enlarge further upon such a scene. Let it 
suffice to say, that out of a total force of thir- 
teen hundred and seventy-three all but four 
hundred and fifty-nine were killed or wounded ; 
and in addition to these, out of eighty-six offi- 
cers only twenty-three escaped unhurt. The 
whole affair was as thickly fraught with horror 
as anything that is likely to happen in modern 
warfare. The utter fatuity of the affair, the 
hopeless feeling of brave men drawn up for 
slaughter without understanding the means of 
defence, has in it something peculiarly intoler- 
Braddock's able. The gallant Braddock, as he 
death Jay half-dazed upon his death-bed, 

was heard to murmur, " Who would ever have 
thought it ? " and again, after an interval, " We 
shall know better how to do it next time." ^ 

The skilful retreat from this field of blood 
added much to the credit of the youthful Wash- 
ington, and marked him out as an officer likely 
„ , , to have a brilliant future. As for the 

Dunbar s 

culpable re- rear column, which had been left un- 
der command of Colonel Dunbar, it 
retreated to Fort Cumberland, and presently 
abandoned the campaign, a most ill-judged and 
reprehensible proceeding which threw open the 

^ [^Life of Benjamin Franklin, written by himself, i. 3 2 7. J 



BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 293 

frontier to all the horrors of Indian invasion. 
The events of the past twelve months had done 
all that twelvemonths could do in destroying the 
influence of the English among the Ohio tribes. 
Washington's disaster at Great Meadows had 
gone far toward undermining their allegiance, 
Braddock's insolence had seasoned their con- 
tempt with a spice of anger, and now at last this 
headlong overthrow of an English army had 
convinced the red men that good medicine was 
all on the side of the Great White Father on 
the St. Lawrence. 

Thus inauspiciously for the English began 
the mighty war that was to put an end to the 
dominion of Frenchmen in America, yet it must 
be remembered that no declaration of war had 
as yet been made public. These deeds of blood 
were the deeds of a time of so-called peace.^ 

^ [For the literature of Braddock's march and defeat, see 
Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist. v. 575-580.] 



IX 

CROWN POINT, FORT WILLIAM 
HENRY, AND TICONDEROGA 

WHILE General Braddock was at 
Williamsburg in the spring of 1755, 
discussing plans for the summer, he 
was visited by Governor Shirley, and a very ex- 
„ tensive scheme of campaigninp; was 

Governor _ _ r o o 

Shirley's plan laid out. While Braddock was to ad- 
campaign y^j^^^ Egainst Fort Duquesne, Shirley 
was to conduct a force, consisting largely of 
New England troops, to the Niagara River by 
way of the Mohawk valley and Oswego. At 
the same time a force commanded by William 
Johnson was to wrest from the French the con- 
trol of Lake Champlain, and yet another force 
under Colonel Monckton was to proceed against 
the French on the Acadian frontier. The expedi- 
tion against Niagara was to be commanded by 
Shirley himself, and he also undertook to pro- 
vide a leader for the operations against Crown 
Point. Few royal governors had so much suc- 
cess in dealing with their legislatures as Shirley, 
who was conspicuous for moderation and tact. 
He knew how to make his demands seem rea- 



CROWN POINT 295 

sonable in amount, and he knew how to urge 
them so gracefully as to make it hard to refuse 
them. In the present instance he had to deal 
with the four New England colonies and New 
York ; and he understood very well that he 
could not appoint a commander from anyone of 
the New England commonwealths without of- 
fending the other three. But against the ap- 
pointment of William Johnson nothing could 
very well be said, since the aid of the Iroquois 
seemed important and Johnson's influence over 
them was well known. Besides, the expedition 
was to be directed toward points in the Mohawk 
country. For these reasons Shirley selected 
Johnson to command the movement wiiiiam 
against Crown Point, and it proved 1°^"^*" ^° 
a good selection. It greatly pleased Crown Point 
New York and the Long House, and no serious 
objection was made in New England except that 
Connecticut insisted that one of her own of- 
ficers, Phineas Lyman, should be second in 
command, and this, too, was a good selection. 
There was much delay, owing to the necessity 
for communicating with five different legisla- 
tures, and the larger part of the summer had 
passed away before anything was accomplished. 
The sad news of Braddock's defeat came like 
an augury of disaster to Johnson and his men 
as they were approaching the upper waters of 
the Hudson in August. Along with this news 



296 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

came a report from the north that the French 
were coming with eight thousand men to de- 
fend Lake Champlain. 

Johnson's little army consisted almost en- 
tirely of New England yeomanry, many of whom 
, were now for the first time in training 

Character of . . '-' 

Johnson's for the tasks that awaited them in 
army 1 775 and the cnsuing ycars. Among 

them were names afterward so important as those 
of Seth Pomeroy, Israel Putnam, and John 
Stark. The training now gained by these men 
and their comrades made veterans of them for 
the opening scene of the later war. 

The movements were slow and the delays 
incessant, partly because the business of moving 
an army was so ill understood. Cannon, am- 
munition, and camp kettles would be forgotten 
and left on the way ; wagons would not arrive 
at the right time, either because distances had 
been miscalculated, or because the wagoners were 
disappointed of their pay and spiteful ; the stock 
of bullets delivered to a regiment would not fit 
their muskets; stores of food were delayed un- 
til men were oppressed with hunger ; and so on 
through the usual list of mishaps attendant upon 
bad logistics. By the third week in August this 
New England army had arrived at a point on 
the Hudson River where a fortress then partly 
built was called Fort Lyman, a place which after- 
ward acquired celebrity as Fort Edward. There 



CROWN POINT 297 

they were joined by three hundred Mohawks. 
From Fort Lyman to Crown Point two routes 
were available : one by way of Lake George, the 
other by way of Wood Creek, which emptied 
into the long, narrow head of Lake Champlain. 
These two routes united at Ticonderoga, about 
twenty-five miles south of Crown Point. After 
some discussion it was decided to follow the 
route by Lake George, which was then known 
by its French name of Lake Sacre- ^ , 

, , . 1 Johnson 

ment, but Johnson gave it the name names Lake 
of the British king, partly by way of ^°'^^^ 
asserting his dominion over it. Leaving five 
hundred men to complete Fort Lyman, John- 
son moved with the other two thousand to the 
head of Lake George, and encamped there. 

Meanwhile, the French commander. Baron 
Dieskau, had arrived at Crown Point with a 
force of more than thirty-five hun- Dieskau's 
dred men, and decided to push for- ^pp''°=*'='^ 
ward and find the enemy. At Ticonderoga he 
received information from an English prisoner 
which was intended to draw him into a trap. 
The prisoner informed him that five hundred 
of the New England army were at Fort Lyman, 
but the remainder had for some unknown rea- 
son turned back and retreated upon Albany. 
This story seemed to offer to Dieskau an easy 
conquest of Fort Lyman, and he pursued his 
way with all haste southward by Lake Cham- 



298 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

plain to what was called the South Bay, the 
head of which was about halfway between Wood 
Creek and Lake George. Thence he marched 
directly toward Fort Lyman, and had arrived 
within four miles of it when he captured a letter 
which disclosed the truth, that the principal body 
of New Englanders were encamped at the head 
of Lake George. Dieskau had with him six hun- 
dred Indians under Legardeur de Saint- Pierre, 
and these allies suggested that they would 
The Indians greatly prefer to attack the open camp 
attack^the father than the fort. Indians, indeed, 
camp had no love for encountering can- 

non. When it was objected that there seemed 
to be more English in the open camp than in 
the fort, it was replied that the English were 
wretched fighters, and would think of nothing 
but running away. The victory over Braddock 
was cited with exultation, and several painted 
chieftains yelped with delight as they assured 
Dieskau that the more English there were in 
the camp the more scalps there would be to 
bring away. Thus persuaded, if not convinced, 
Dieskau gave orders to march directly upon 
Lake George. 

Meanwhile in Johnson's camp, when scouts 
announced the approach of a large French force, 
its size was underestimated, and at first two par- 
ties, each of five hundred men, were ordered 
out by different trails to attack it. Then the 



CROWN POINT 299 

veteran Mohawk chief Hendrick picked up a 
couple of stout sticks and tried in vain to break 
them, but immediately thereafter took them 
separately and broke them with ease, ^j^^ ^^ j.^j^ 
" Very well," quoth Johnson, " let scouting 
them take the same trail." But even p"'5"^°"^^ 
now the old red skin was not quite satisfied. 
"If their aim is victory," he said, "there are 
not enough of them ; but if they are going to 
be defeated, there are too many to lose." The 
upshot was that Dieskau, receiving intelligence 
of this advancing party, laid an ambush and 
inflicted upon it a severe defeat, in which the 
veteran Hendrick and many well-known New 
England officers were killed. 

Emboldened by this success, and half believ- 
ing the slanders against English courage, Dies- 
kau pressed on to attack Johnson's camp, but 
the latter was strongly fortified with earthworks 
and with trunks of fallen trees. The ^. , 

Dieskau 

most desperate efforts of the French repulsed and 
to carry the place by storm were fruit- "p'"'"'' 
less, and after they had fought until their strength 
was nearly exhausted, the New Englanders came 
leaping over the works in a deadly charge, and 
the Frenchmen were driven from the field with 
heavy slaughter. Among the killed was the 
Chevalier de Saint- Pierre, whose interview with 
George Washington at Fort Le Boeuf had 
been the opening scene of this great drama. 



300 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Dieskau was wounded and taken prisoner, and 
Johnson's Mohawks were furiously eager to 
burn him, but the Irishman treated him with 
great kindness and courtesy, and assured him, 
" They will not burn you until they burn me 
with you." 

There is not time to go into the disputed 
questions which cluster about this as about most 
battles. New England men have claimed the 
chief credit for Lyman,^ to whom they allege 
that Johnson never did justice ; and I am in- 
clined to think this judgment is, on the whole, 
well supported. The chief credit at the time 
accrued to Johnson, and the promptness of his 
reward is an index to the chagrin which was felt 
in England over the defeat of Braddock. John- 
son was at once made a baronet. As for the vic- 
tory, it would have been a very important one 
if Johnson had followed it up and destroyed the 
enemy's force. Much fault was found with him 
for not doing this, but, as has often happened 
in such cases, the reasons for his inaction are not 
easy to explain. With the victory, such as it 
was, the English were obliged to rest content 
Shirley's ^^^ somc time to come. For Shirley's 
expedition expedition against Niagara was a corn- 
Niagara plete failure. Shirley penetrated the 
a failure Ncw York wildcmcss as far as Oswego, 
from which it was possible to reach the Niagara 
* [Cf. Dwight's Travels, iii. 367-370.] 



CROWN POINT 301 

River in boats in the course of five or six days. 
But there was a French force of fourteen hun- 
dred men at Fort Frontenac. This was about 
equal to Shirley's full force. If he were to leave 
men enough at Oswego to defend the works, he 
would not be able to go on with force enough 
to accomplish his object ; but if he were to pro- 
ceed westward with his full force, the French 
from Fort Frontenac would at once capture 
Oswego and expose him to starvation. There 
was no escape from the dilemma, and it became 
necessary to abandon the campaign. 

The winter which followed was one of such 
misery on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania as had never been witnessed be- Desolation on 
fore. Firebrand and tomahawk were '^"^ frontier 
perpetually busy, and it proved impossible to 
concentrate forces in such way as to deal with 
the horror. It was a winter of bitter contention 
in legislatures, and of gloom and fault-finding 
everywhere. 

At last, in May, 1756, nearly two years after 
Washington's little campaign at Great Mead- 
ows, England declared war against France, and 
the most memorable war of modern times was 
begun. Frederick of Prussia, in beginning to 
build up a modern Germany out of the sound- 
est elements that had survived the general 
devastation of the Thirty Years' War, had con- 
trived to enlist against himself a powerful coali- 



302 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

tion. By his seizure of Silesia he had made a 
o enin of permanent enemy of AustHa. Maria 
the Seven Theresa, having failed to recover Sile- 

Years' War ... . 

sia m the recent war, was ready to try 
again ; and she found a formidable ally in Eliza- 
beth of Russia, who was ready to attack Prus- 
sia for various reasons, all of them sharpened 
and embittered by the deadliest of insults when 
Frederick had called her by an epithet that was 
strictly true. To these two powers was added 
that of France, which was coming to forebode 
more danger from Prussia than from Austria. 
In such a combination the alliance of England 
with Prussia was marked out by all sound policy. 
From the narrowest point of view, George IE 
^ , , , would find his principality of Hanover 

England and r i J ^ 

Prussia join thus better protected, while from the 
widest point of view, the contest for 
colonial empire could best be carried on while 
the military strength of France was largely ab- 
sorbed in warfare on the continent of Europe. 
The English treasury was thus the mainstay of 
Frederick the Great, who put every penny of 
the money thus received to the best possible 
use by sustaining single-handed a victorious 
contest against Russia, Austria, and France.^ 

^ [For the diplomatic changes which preceded the Seven 
Years' War, see Perkins, France under Louis XV., ii. 1-84, 
or Tuttle, History of Prussia under Frederic the Great, ii. 
234-321.] 



CROWN POINT 303 

While Frederick was winning some of the most 
astonishing victories the world has seen, and 
keeping his three antagonists at bay, the fight 
for control of the colonial world was carried on 
by England with great advantage against France 
in North America and in Hindostan. 

It was not in a moment, however, that the 
English world reaped the advantages of this 
new combination of forces, for it happened 
that the choice made by the French minister 
for a commander-in-chief in America proved to 
be exceptionally fortunate. The appointment 
of Louis Joseph, Marquis de Mont- 

, ^ r ^ _ -1 r 1 Montcalm 

calm, was an appomtment tor long- 
tried merit. He was forty-four years of age, 
having been born in the neighbourhood of 
Nimes in 17 12. He had an excellent educa- 
tion, especially in Greek and Latin classics and 
philology, and his literary tastes were such that 
one of the great objects of his ambition was to 
become a member of the Academy. In his 
leisure moments he was always engaged in read- 
ing and study. During the war of the Austrian 
Succession he had served with great distinction, 
and he was recognized by competent judges as 
one of the ablest officers in the French service. 
When he came to America he left behind him 
in his charming country home at Candiac, near 
Nimes, a wife and six children, besides his 
mother. Montcalm was a man of strong fam- 



304 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

ily affections and intense love of home, as we 
see from many charming allusions in his jour- 
nal and letters while campaigning in the New 
World. 

His voyage of nearly six weeks was a rough 
one, and sometimes dangerous. In a letter to 
his wife he says : " The forecastle was always 
under water, and the waves broke twice over 
Montcalm's thc quarter-dcck. From the 22d of 
r^opgeto April to the evening of the 4th of 
Canada May wc had fogs, great cold, and an 

amazing quantity of icebergs. On the 30th, 
when luckily the fog lifted for a time, we 
counted sixteen of them. The day before, one 
drifted under the bowsprit, grazed it, and 
might have crushed us if the deck-officer had 
not called out quickly, Luf. After speaking 
of our troubles and sufferings, I must tell you 
of our pleasures, which were fishing for cod 
and eating it. The taste is exquisite. The 
head, tongue, and liver are morsels worthy of 
an epicure. Still, I would not advise anybody 
to make the voyage for their sake. My health 
is as good as it has been for a long time. I 
found it a good plan to eat little and take no 
supper ; a little tea now and then, and plenty 
of lemonade. Nevertheless I have taken very 
little liking for the sea, and think that when I 
shall be so happy as to rejoin you I shall end m.y 
voyages there. I don't know when this letter 



CROWN POINT 305 

will go. I shall send it by the first ship that 
returns to France, and keep on writing till then. 
It is pleasant, I know, to hear particulars about 
the people one loves, and I thought that my 
mother and you, my dearest and most beloved, 
would be glad to read all these dull details. 
We heard mass on Easter Day. All the week 
before, it was impossible, because the ship 
rolled so that I could hardly keep my legs. If 
I had dared, I think I should have had myself 
lashed fast. I shall not soon forget that Holy 
Week."^ 

When Montcalm arrived in Montreal, his 
reception by Governor Vaudreuil was far from 
cordial. Vaudreuil aspired to military Vaudreuii 
fame, and thought himself competent ty^Mon?'* 
to direct military operations on a large calm's arrival 
scale as well as to command either Canadian 
militia or French regulars. He liked, moreover, 
to have everything his own way, and knew 
very well that he was not likely always to pre- 
vail over a strong-willed and energetic general- 
in-chief. Besides, Vaudreuil was a native of 
Canada, having been born there during his 
father's administration, and between Canadians 
and Frenchmen from the old country there 
was somewhat the same kind of jealousy that 
existed between Americans and British. The 
coldness between Montcalm and the governor 

^ [Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe y i. 364, 365.] 



306 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

sometimes had an ill effect upon the French 
operations. 

Nevertheless the arrival of Montcalm was 
soon signalized by a heavy blow to the Eng- 
lish. In a certain sense the blow was prepared 
by the English themselves. We have seen how 
Shirley's expedition had been turned back at 
Oswego by French demonstrations from Fort 
Frontenac. Such a failure was of course inevi- 
table for any expedition directed against Niag- 
ara, unless Fort Frontenac were first captured. 
After Shirley's return to New York the gen- 
shiriey eral discontent assumed the form of 

superseded ^ quarrel between him and Johnson, 
and several persons of influence in New York 
wrote to the minister requesting that another 
commander-in-chief be appointed in his stead. 
The ministry replied by appointing John Camp- 
bell, Earl of Loudoun, to the chief command in 
America ; but as this particular Campbell was 
slow in coming, they sent General James Aber- 
crombie in advance of him, and as Abercrombie 
was not quite ready, they sent Colonel Daniel 
Webb; insomuch that Shirley, who was just 
preparing a new campaign against Oswego, had 
to turn over the command to Webb, who turned 
it over to Abercrombie, who turned it over to 
Loudoun, — and so much swapping of horses in 
mid-stream, as President Lincoln would have 
said, was not conducive to promptness and 



CROWN POINT 307 

unity of operation. As for the new comman- 
der-in-chief, he was as poor a choice as could 
have been made. Shirley was a mere The Eari of 
amateur soldier, but he had courage, Loudoun 
quickness, and discretion. Loudoun, on the 
other hand, was dull, sleepy, and irresolute, 
— the kind of man who would be likely to 
stop halfway in any important undertaking. 
Dr. Franklin summed him up very well when 
he compared him to Saint George on the tavern 
signboards, always on horseback, but never get- 
ting ahead. 

The effect of the arrivals of Webb and Aber- 
crombie was to delay an expedition which Shir- 
ley would have sent to Oswego in the hope of 
moving from that point against Fort Fronte- 
nac. When Loudoun arrived, late in Loudoun 
July, he determined to concentrate 1^^^^^° 
his efforts against Ticonderoga, where Tkonderoga 
the French had erected a new fortress, and to 
content himself on Lake Ontario by merely 
holding Oswego. Having thus decided, he 
allowed time to slip away without reinforcing 
Oswego. This was bad generalship, since if 
the French were to take Oswego, they would 
not only cut off the English from Niagara but 
would have their hands free to concentrate 
against them at TicondeToga and Crown Point. 
After Loudoun's arrival at Albany, all opera- 
tions were brought to a standstill by a silly 



308 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

order of the king in council that all generals 
and colonels holding commissions from the 
colonial governments should rank only on the 
level of senior captains. Such an arrangement 
might have put the entire provincial army under 
the command of a British major. While hot 
disputes were raging over this matter, Loudoun 
suddenly remembered the need of Oswego and 
sent Webb in all haste with reinforcements, but 
this hurry at the eleventh hour was unavailing. 
When Webb arrived at the great portage be- 
tween the Mohawk valley and Lake Ontario, 
about where Fort Stanwix was afterwards built, 
and near the site of the present city of Rome, 
FaUof he learned with dismay that Mont- 

oswego calm had captured Oswego. It was 

even so. While Loudoun had been dawdling, 
Montcalm had been acting. He had crossed 
from Fort Frontenac, invested Oswego, and 
pressed the siege so vigorously that the garri- 
son of fourteen hundred men with two or three 
hundred non-combatants surrendered, prisoners 
of war. Among the spoils were more than a 
hundred light cannon. Here something oc- 
curred which was ominous of future horror. A 
few of Montcalm's Indians began murdering 
prisoners, and it was only with great difficulty 
and by making lavish promises that he suc- 
ceeded in restraining those painted demons. He 
reckoned that the presents to be given them 



CROWN POINT 309 

as a ransom for the prisoners would amount to 
ten or twelve thousand livres. 

The following winter witnessed many scenes 
of partisan warfare which we need not here stop 
to describe. The summer of 1 757 found things 
looking ill for the English cause. The French 
had destroyed Oswego, which was for them an 
outpost dangerously near the strongholds of the 
Six Nations, but while they held Fort Fronte- 
nac they could prevent the English from reach- 
ing the Niagara River, and this fact, together 
with their possession of Fort Duquesne, seemed 
to have given them the victory so far as the 
whole interior of the continent was concerned. 
The effect of the capture of Oswego upon the 
Indians was very great. One day a Montcalm's 
party from Lake Superior came to see "pture of 

IV /r 1 J 1 • 1 1 Oswego im- 

Montcalm, and their spokesman thus presses the 
addressed him : " We wanted to see ^""^'^"^ 
this famous man who tramples the English 
under his feet. We thought we should find 
him so tall that his head would be lost in the 
clouds. But you are a little man, my father. 
It is when we look into your eyes that we see 
the greatness of the pine-tree and the fire of 
the eagle." ^ 

It remained to see what could be done in 
the direction of Lake Champlain or in that 

* [Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, i, 475, from Bougain- 
ville's Journal.] 



310 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of Cape Breton Island. The Earl of Loudoun 
Loudoun's decided that the most important thing 
against '°" ^^ ^^ done was to capture Louisburg, 
Louisburg and to that end he started with more 
than ten thousand men and seventeen ships-of- 
the-line, and after wasting the whole summer 
retired to the mainland because he heard that 
a French fleet was approaching which outnum- 
bered him by one ship. He was an apt scholar 
of that worthy king of France who marched 
his forty thousand men up a hill and down 
again. 

But while Loudoun seems to have been 
incapable of achieving anything, he was able 
to spoil much. These mighty preparations for 
Louisburg went far towards stripping the Hud- 
son River of its defenders, so that Montcalm 
was able to entertain thoughts of advancing 
southward and capturing Albany. For this 
purpose there were assembled at Ticonderoga 
Montcalm's '^^ J^k ^ ^^Tce of scvcnty-six hun- 
expedition (jred Frcnchmcn and Canadians with 
William eighteen hundred Indians, a force 
"''"''y unusually large and unwieldy. The 

story of Braddock's defeat and the fall of 
Oswego had penetrated far and wide through- 
out the wilderness, and among the bedizened 
chiefs who were gathered between Lake Cham- 
plain and Lake George were some from dis- 
tant Iowa, whose language none of the white 



FORT WILLIAM HENRY 311 

men, not even those most familiar with the 
forest, could understand. They made no secret 
of the fact that they had come for feasting and 
pelf. Such gormandizers the Frenchmen said 
they had never seen. Long rows of oxen roasted 
whole disappeared with amazing celerity, and 
wild fowl vanished as if they had taken to wing 
and flown down the red men's throats. When, 
however, it came to eating human flesh, our 
Frenchmen winced at the sight. As for brandy 
and rum, it was necessary to guard the casks 
with great care to prevent these thirsty allies 
from breaking them open ; and when perocity of 
the Indians were thoroughly drunk Montcalm's 

\ • r • 1 1111 Indian allies 

their rerocity became uncontrollable ; 
they quarrelled incessantly, and bit and tore 
each other with their teeth like wild beasts. 
It was not easy for the French to restrain these 
creatures, for if they had been prevented from 
eating prisoners and drinking rum, they would 
have taken oflfence and gone trooping ofi^ on 
other business, and in that wilderness they 
were as necessary to the French as cavalry are 
necessary in civilized warfare. It has been 
said that the eyes of an army are its cavalry ; 
it might be truly said that the eyes of the 
French force in the wilderness were its Indian 
scouts. 

The only English force opposed to Mont- 
calm consisted of twenty-six hundred men at 



312 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Fort Edward, under the immediate command 
of General Webb, and twelve hundred at the 
head of Lake George, where Johnson had for- 
merly defeated Dieskau. It was shameful mis- 
The English management on the part of Loudoun 
force at Fort to leave this important point so weakly 
Henry and guarded. When Webb learned that 
Fort Edward ^^^ French were likely to make an 
attack, he intended to move his men from Fort 
Edward to Lake George, but he presently de- 
sisted from this lest the French should seize the 
occasion to come down by way of South Bay,^ 
slip around his right flank, and move upon 
Albany. The expedient of withdrawing his 
weak advance force to the meeting of routes at 
Fort Edward does not seem to have occurred to 
him. So he sent forward a thousand men, thus 
raising the numbers at Lake George to twenty- 
two hundred. This force was protected by 
strong lines of works which Johnson had called 
Fort William Henry, and also by huge trunks 
of felled trees scattered in various directions. 

Against this fortress Montcalm started on 
the 1st of August with a force of seven thou- 
sand Frenchmen and sixteen hundred Indians, 
leaving a garrison of four hundred men at Ti- 
conderoga. On arriving at Fort William Henry 
he sent a summons to the commander. Colonel 

^ [The southern tip of Lake Champlain, about halfway 
between Ticonderoga and the head of Lake George.] 




MAP OF LA 



O R K 



im^^^ 



*§^ 




V. N G i: A 



"N! 



D 



)RGE 



FORT WILLIAM HENRY 313 

Monro, to surrender, but Monro refused, and 
presently the French general found himself 
obliged to proceed by regular meth- Montcalm 
ods of siege, opening parallels, plant- '^nfanf'"^'^ 
ing batteries, and pounding the works. Henry 
While this was going on, a letter from Gen- 
eral Webb was captured by the French. It 
was written to inform Colonel Monro that 
General Webb would be unable to come to his 
assistance until further reinforcements should 
arrive, for which he had sent repeated requests 
down the river. After reading this welcome 
information, Montcalm kept it in his pocket 
two or three days until some bad breaches had 
been made in the English works, and then he 
sent it in to Colonel Monro with a flag of 
truce and many compliments upon his bravery. 
Monro politely dismissed the flag and con- 
tinued to earn the compliments by holding out 
until the close of the eighth day ; by that time 
his heavy guns were all silenced, three hundred 
of his men were killed, and a considerable por- 
tion of the garrison were disabled with small- 
pox. Under these circumstances Monro capit- 
ulated. His force was to march out with the 
honours of war and to retain one cannon as a 
present in token of their gallantry. Before the 
articles were signed Montcalm called a meeting 
of the Indian chiefs, and received from them a 
solemn promise confirmed in every manner 



314 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

known to the Indian mind that there should 
be no molestation of the prisoners. The chiefs 
Surrender of werc unanimous in making this prom- 

the forces at • j ^ j '^L i 

Fort William ^^^j ^^^ asscverated with much ear- 
Henry nestness that they would restrain their 
young warriors from any acts of cruelty or 
plunder. No sooner, however, had the garrison 
left the fort, than a rabble of Indians swarmed 
in and instantly tomahawked all the men who 
were confined to their beds by sickness. 

This incident was like the tiger's foretaste 
of blood. The Indians were too numerous to 
be kept in control by their French allies. They 
understood their power, and were to the last de- 
gree indignant at the prospect of being baulked 
in their bloodthirsty fury. The next morning, 
according to agreement, the English column 
started for Fort Edward with an escort of 
„, Canadian militia. At the moment of 

The 

Indians un- Starting, a large party of Indians 

controllable .111111 

tomahawked and scalped seventeen 
wounded men in the presence of an inadequate 
French force that had been sent to guard them. 
Not long after the march had begun another 
party rushed up from under cover of the trees 
and seized some seventy or eighty New Hamp- 
shire soldiers, and dragging them off under 
cover, massacred them at leisure. The short 
journey to Fort Edward was an evil one, for 
such acts of murder kept recurring in spite of 



FORT WILLIAM HENRY 315 

Montcalm's persistent and furious efforts to 
prevent them. It is said that in the course of 
the march the Indians succeeded in dragging 
six or seven hundred persons from the column ; 
but Montcalm was able to rescue from four to 
five hundred of these. The exact number of 
the victims has never been satisfactorily esti- 
mated, but it was enough to make „. 

' O 1 he mas- 

Fort William Henry a name of hor- sacre of 

ror to Americans for many a long p"^""*^*^^ 
year. To Montcalm it was an abiding grief; 
but while we must acquit the general of any 
share of this atrocity, it can hardly be denied 
that some of the French officers showed culpa- 
ble weakness, acting as if they were more than 
half afraid of the red men themselves, so that 
they were over-cautious about drawing the 
wrath of the murderers upon themselves. Take 
it for all in all, it is one of the blackest inci- 
dents in the history of our country. 

Before the next season of campaigning a 
great change had been made in England. By a 
happy stroke of fortune the conduct of military 
operations throughout the empire had been put 
into the hands of William Pitt, the 

' , William Pitt 

greatest war mmister and organizer 
of victory that the world has seen. It boded 
no good to France when the genius of Pitt was 
called upon to cooperate with that of Frederick 
of Prussia. Pitt had a supreme capacity for 



316 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

administration and an infallible eye for the 
selection of men to carry out his plans. He 
was never confused by petty details, but saw 
through them to the great underlying princi- 
ples. He delighted in large ideas, as is shown 
by the fact that the maritime supremacy of 
England, the winning of the Mississippi valley 
for English-speaking America, and the creation 
of a renovated Protestant empire in Germany 
were in his mind the closely allied phases of 
one stupendous scheme. Along with these high 
intellectual qualifications, there was in Pitt a 
magnetic glow of lofty emotion which seemed 
at once under his leadership to inspire the 
whole English people. It was said of him that 
no man ever entered his presence without going 
away a better citizen and a braver man. In an 
age when most statesmen looked with tolerance 
upon corruption, and when domestic morals 
were not upon a high plane, Pitt was absolutely 
spotless in public and in private life, and the 
popular faith in his disinterestedness was never 
disappointed. He was a democrat, too, after 
the fashion of the eighteenth century, and for 
„. , , ,j the first time since the death of 

Pitt s hold 

on popular Cromwcll the English people felt that 
they had a leader who represented 
the whole nation, from the highest to the low- 
est. In America the feeling toward him was 
nearly as strong as in England, so that when 



FORT WILLIAM HENRY 317 

he began by informing the New England colo- 
nies that he should have to ask them for twenty- 
thousand men, they replied with greater willing- 
ness than when formerly they had been asked 
for one fourth of that number. 

One of Pitt's first acts was to recall the in- 
competent Loudoun and to replace him by a 
general of tried ability, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, and 
among his subordinate generals was the youth- 
ful James Wolfe, of whom we shall presently 
hear more. Pitt would have been glad put recalls 
to remove Abercrombie, but influ- l°"<^o"" 
ences were brought to bear in behalf of that 
general of such a nature that it did not seem 
altogether wise to disregard them. He was 
accordingly retained in command of the forces 
on the Hudson River, while Pitt sent over to 
be his second in command Lord Howe, whom 
Wolfe called the best soldier in the English 
army, and who was unquestionably an officer of 
rare personality and extraordinary powers. This 
George Augustus, Viscount Howe was the elder 
brother of the famous admiral, Richard, Vis- 
count Howe, and of Sir William Howe, who 
commanded the British army in America a few 
years later. These three brothers were grand- 
sons of George L, whose daughter by the Bar- 
oness Kielmannsegge married Eman- 
uel, Viscount Howe. They were 
half-cousins to the reigning king, George II. 



318 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

All three studied military affairs from their ear- 
liest years ; all three were warm friends to the 
American colonists ; but this was especially true 
of the eldest brother, George Augustus. In 
sending him to America Pitt had reason to be- 
lieve that he would prove the real guiding spirit 
of Abercrombie's army. We have now to see 
how an adverse fate exacted yet one more costly 
sacrifice before all the benefits of the new change 
in administration were realized. 

At the end of June, 1758, Abercrombie's 
army was encamped at the head of Lake George 
where Johnson had defeated Dieskau 
tion against three years before, and where scarcely 
Ticonderoga ^^^ months had elapsed since the hor- 
rors of Fort William Henry. Abercrombie had 
collected at that spot more than six thousand 
British regulars and nine thousand provincial 
troops ; in all, more than fifteen thousand, the 
largest army that had ever been collected in 
North America. The task before him was to 
do what Johnson had failed to do, to move 
upon Montcalm at Ticonderoga and defeat him. 
By the 4th of July all the arrangements were 
completed, and next morning the whole army 
embarked in bateaux and canoes on Lake 
George. It was an imposing sight, eloquently 
described by more than one contemporary pen. 
It soon appeared that Pitt had not been wrong 
in supposing that Lord Howe would prove to 



TICONDEROGA 319 

be the life of the army. His popularity was un- 
bounded with all ranks, from the commander 
down to the private soldiers. On his first arrival 
in America he had seized an opportunity for 
learning something about the conditions of war- 
fare in the wilderness, for he sought Lord Howe's 
with the true insight of genius to adaptability 
adapt himself to new conditions. He would lay 
aside all cumbersome baggage and trim away 
all useless apparel, cutting down long coats into 
jackets, making the men wear leather leggings 
for protection in the brush, and carry meal in 
their knapsacks, which they could at any time 
cook for themselves. In all such things he him- 
self set the example. 

At noon of July 6 the flotilla had reached 
the northern end of Lake George, where it nar- 
rows into a crooked river or strait communicat- 
ing with Lake Champlain at the mouth of Wood 
Creek. The whole force was speedily landed, 
and began its march on the west side of the 
river. Robert Rogers led the way with a couple 
of New England regiments,but presently became 
entangled in woods so dense that the The English 
rays of the sun could hardly find their l^^^lnhT'' 
way in. Here, after a while, they be- woods 
came confused, and were at a loss in which di- 
rection to move. A party of three hundred and 
fifty French under Langy had been watching 
the landing from an eminence between the river 



320 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

and Trout Brook. Before they could retreat 
from that spot the whole English army had 
advanced so far as to cut them asunder from 
their main army at Ticonderoga, but Langy was 
an old hand at bushranging, and he thought 
that by crossing to the north of Trout Brook 
he could describe a semicircle and reach Ticon- 
deroga. Thus the three hundred and fifty 
Frenchmen under Langy and the two New 
England regiments under Rogers were wander- 
ing in a forest which at midday was nearly as 
dark as night. And here the Frenchmen, too, 
soon lost their bearings. At the very head of 
the English column was Lord Howe with Major 
Israel Putnam, when all at once a rustling was 
heard among the branches, and a sharp cry of 
"^«z vive F " The answer, ^^ Fran ^ais" was 
prompt enough, but some of Langy's men had 
sharp eyes, and even in that pitch darkness could 
tell the British scarlet from the French white. 
Langy's reply was a volley which slew Lord 
Death of Howe and wrecked the fortunes of 
Lord Howe ^n army. The further result of this 
chance collision was the defeat of Langy's party, 
most of which was captured, but when this 
densest piece of woods had been traversed, and 
the news of what had happened flew from rank 
to rank, it is said the spirit of the whole army 
was dashed, and high hopes gave place to con- 
sternation. So greatly had this young ofiicer 



TICONDEROGA 321 

endeared himself to people in the short time 
since his arrival in America, that at the news of 
his death there was weeping throughout the 
northern colonies. The commonwealth of Mas- 
sachusetts afterward erected a monument to 
Howe in Westminster Abbey. 

Nobody felt the loss more keenly than Aber- 
crombie, who had been depending upon Howe's 
advice. He had need of such advice after com- 
ing within touch of the French position. Across 
the plateau northwest of the fortress of Ticon- 
deroga there runs a ridge which Montcalm had 
fortified by felling trees in such wise Montcalm's 
as to make a zigzag parapet, so that "defences 
an approaching foe could be torn between flank 
fires of grapeshot and musketry. On the inner 
side was a platform from which to fire, and the 
parapet was so high that nothing could be seen 
of the French soldiers standing upon the plat- 
form except the crowns of their hats. Along 
the entire front of the parapet the ground was 
covered with intertwisted boughs presenting a 
myriad sharp points to any approaching foe. 
Now this position was obviously one which 
could hardly be carried by infantry armed with 
muskets, but to a general who possessed the 
slightest inventiveness of mind it was very far 
from being an impregnable position. Indeed, 
Montcalm had been slow in making up his 
mind whether to try to hold Ticonderoga or to 



322 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

retreat upon Crown Point, and when at last he 
decided to fortify this position, his resolution 
was somewhat hastily taken. It is probable 
that Montcalm made a mistake in trying to 
defend the point of land upon which the for- 
tress of Ticonderoga stood, for there were sev- 
eral ways in which Abercrombie might have de- 
feated him. He might have sent back to the 
landing place and brought up all his cannon 
and used them to batter down these 

Alternatives 

open to wooden obstructions before charging 

ercrom le ^Yy^m with his infantry. That, one 
would suppose, would have been a mere ordi- 
nary precaution. And then, there was a hill in 
the immediate neighbourhood where Abercrom- 
bie might have planted a few batteries that could 
have torn the French army to pieces, and must 
have obliged them to change their position at 
once. Precisely such a use of that hill was made 
in 1777 by General Burgoyne, with the desired 
result of taking Ticonderoga, and since that 
occasion it has been known as Mount Defiance. 
Yet again, if Abercrombie had made a feint with 
part of his army u'pon Montcalm's position, 
while with his main force he had marched about 
five miles on the road to Crown Point, he would 
Montcalm havc found the lake there so narrow 
AbercrJm- ^^^^ ^^ might havc Commanded the 
bie's stupidity whole of it with batteries, and thus 
cut off Montcalm's retreat and left it for star- 



TICONDEROGA 323 

vation to do the rest. It would seem, there- 
fore, that Montcalm was rescued from a perilous 
situation by the stupidity of his enemy, and it 
is among the possibilities that he may have 
counted upon that very circumstance. There is 
a curious analogy between this battle of Ticon- 
deroga and those of Bunker Hill and New 
Orleans. At Bunker Hill the American force 
was completely at the mercy of the British, and 
might have been forced to surrender without 
the loss of a life. This would have been done 
if the British had simply gone by water and 
occupied Charlestown Neck, but the brother 
of the young general slain at Ticonderoga pre- 
ferred to assault intrenchments and suffered ac- 
cordingly.^ So, too, at New Orleans. It was 
not necessary for Sir Edward Pakenham to 
assault Andrew Jackson's intrenchments, for he 
might have advanced up the further bank of 
the Mississippi River and turned the whole 
position, but he preferred the bulldog method, 
and very probably Jackson should have the 
credit of having known his man. 

With regard to Abercrombie, he seems to 
have been influenced by undue haste. A rumour 
reached him that reinforcements were on the 
way to Montcalm, and therefore he was anxious 
to adopt the quickest method. Besides, he seems 
to have harboured that fallacious notion that one 
* [See Fiske, The American Revolution, i. 167.] 



324 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Englishman can under any circumstances beat 
three Frenchmen. At all events, on the fore- 
An assault noon of July 8 the assault was or 
ordered dcred. The instructions to the Eng- 

lish infantry were to carry the works by a solid 
bayonet charge, an order which seems almost 
incredible, for as might have been expected, the 
compactness needed for a bayonet charge was 
almost instantly broken up by the tangle of 
pointed boughs and the trunks lying in all 
directions upon the ground, and presently the 
assailants, caught in a hailstorm of grape and 
musket shot on either flank, could only answer 
by firing in turn. Again and again, with as- 
tounding gallantry, the men from New England 
and Old England returned to the charge. Be- 
tween noon and nightfall they made six assaults 
of the most desperate character, sometimes 
almost winning their way over the parapet, but 
of course the situation was utterly hopeless. The 
All assaults greater the bravery, the sadder the 
repulsed Jogs of Hfc. At twilight, when the fir- 

ing ceased, Abercrombie had lost in killed and 
wounded two thousand men.^ 

Even after all this useless waste of life, there 
was no reason why the English should have 
retreated. Montcalm was in no condition to 
take the offensive, and it would still have been 

1 [The killed alone amounted to some five hundred and 
fifty men. Kingsford, ///j/or); of Canada, iv. 17 3. J 



TICONDEROGA 325 

in Abercrombie's power to march down the 
Crown Point road and cut off all supplies from 
the French army ; but our accounts agree in 
representing the general's conduct as disgraceful. 
He seems to have lost his head, and thought 
only of escaping, as if from a superior foe. By 
the time he had returned to the head of Lake 
George, Abercrombie found himself a laughing- 
stock. People called him a poltroon, Abercrombie 
an old woman, Mrs. Nabbycrombie, "dicuied 
and such other nicknames and epithets as served 
to relieve their feelings. 

It was indeed a dark day for New England 
when the death of Lord Howe deprived the 
army of its brains. Of all the disasters of the 
war, perhaps none struck so near home as Ti- 
conderoga. But the tide of misfortune had 
reached its height, and was already turning. 
We have now to take up the story of Louis- 
burg, of Fort Frontenac and Niagara, of Fort 
Duquesne and Quebec, — a story fraught with 
good cheer for English-speaking America. 



LOUISBURG, FORT DUQUESNE, 
AND THE FALL OF OUEBEC 

yl T midsummer of 1758 four years had 
/-\ elapsed since Washington's experiences 
^ -^ at Great Meadows, and as yet little or 
nothing had occurred to encourage the English. 
It will be remembered that along the border 
between New France and the English colonies 
Strategic there were strategic points of primary 
points in importance. The first of these was 

the contest i-^ t-^ t r 

bort Duquesne, commandmg one or 
the great central routes into the western wilder- 
ness. The French had anticipated the English 
in seizing this point, and the ruin of Braddock's 
army had been incurred in the attempt to recover 
it for the English. The second strategic point 
was Fort Frontenac at the outlet of Lake On- 
tario into the river St. Lawrence, for this strong- 
hold commanded the eastern approaches to Niag- 
ara, and thus controlled the other great route 
to the west. Thus far its importance had been 
illustrated, first, by the failure of Shirley to ad- 
vance beyond Oswego in the direction of Niag- 
ara, and secondly, by Montcalm's capture of 



LOUISBURG 327 

Oswego, a very heavy blow to the English. 
The third strategic point was the southern ex- 
tremity of Lake Champlain with its fortresses at 
Crown Point and Ticonderoga, for in French 
hands this was an excellent base for an invasion 
of New York, while in English hands it would 
serve equally well for an invasion of Canada. 
This strategic point had been held from the 
first by the French, and in three campaigns the 
English had failed to drive them away. In the 
first of these Johnson had won a tactical victory 
which he failed to improve. The second had 
witnessed the shocking tragedy of Fort William 
Henry. The third had been a climax of imbe- 
cility, as shown in the useless butchery at Ticon- 
deroga and the shameful retreat of Abercrom- 
bie after that battle. The fourth strategic point 
was the fortified town of Louisburg on Cape 
Breton Island, which not only threatened the 
Newfoundland fisheries and British commerce 
on the Atlantic in general, but also afforded an 
excellent base for a French invasion of the New 
England coast, while at the same time it made 
the entrance of the St. Lawrence dangerous for 
a hostile fleet. On the other hand, if held by the 
English, Louisburg afforded an excellent base 
for a naval expedition up the St. Lawrence 
against Quebec. This important place had been 
captured by New England militia, aided by Brit- 
ish ships in the preceding war thirteen years 



328 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

before, but had been restored to France by the 
treaty which terminated that war. 

Down to the midsummer of 1758 nothing 
seemed to have prospered with the English, 
but at ail the strategic points where there had 
been collision, the advantage had remained 
, . , with the French. The first change of 

Louisburg . <-> 

fortune was at Louisburg. That town 
was situated on a peninsula at the south side 
of Cape Breton Island. To the east of it was 
a deep and finely sheltered bay which was de- 
fended at Its northern end by what was called 
the Grand Battery, and on an island at the 
entrance, by what was called the Island Bat- 
tery ; while across the peninsula, in front of the 
town, the entrance to the harbour was com- 
manded by a series of four bastions named from 
south to north Princess's, Queen's, King's, and 
Dauphin's. The rear of the town was to a con- 
siderable extent protected by marshes, and the 
rocky coast of Gabarus Bay to the rear or west 
presented but few points where troops could 
effect a landing. At all times the sea was so 
boisterous as to make it dangerous for any 
floating thing to approach the rocks. Since the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle the French govern- 
ment had spent great sums of money in per- 
fecting the fortifications. It was now com- 
manded by General Drucour, who had three 
thousand regular troops with a few Canadians 



LOUISBURG 329 

and Indians, while in the harbour were five 
ships-of-the-line and seven frigates mounting 
five hundred and forty guns and carrying three 
thousand men. 

On the twenty-eighth day of May there sailed 
out from Halifax an English force which was 
to undertake the reduction of Louisburg. It 
was commanded by Admiral Bosca- The English 
wen, who had twenty-three ships-of- against'"" 
the-line and eighteen frigates along Louisburg 
with a fleet of transports carrying eleven thou- 
sand British regulars and five hundred colonial 
militia. The land force was commanded by the 
new general-in-chief for America, Sir Jeffrey 
Amherst. It was the cid of June when this 
powerful force arrived in Gabarus Bay and 
scrutinized its wild coast for a place to land in 
the rear of the town. The prospect was not 
encouraging, and some officers were inclined to 
pronounce the attempt foolhardy, but Boscawen 
and Amherst saw a spot which seemed practi- 
cable, and they entrusted the task of effecting a 
landing there to the young brigadier-general, 
James Wolfe. 

There were three or four places along the 
coast where a landing might be effected if the 
sea were somewhat to subside, and the plan 
was to make demonstrations against all these 
points while the extreme left wing under Gen- 
eral Wolfe should advance against the most 



330 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

remote of them, known as Fresh Water Cove, 
with the intention of carrying it. Although 
this plan was matured on the id of June, it was 
not until the 8th that there was enough of a 
lull in the violence of the surf to admit of any 
approach to the shore whatever. Then the plan 
was tried, and Wolfe's landing was 

General i • , , ^^^^ a i 

Wolfe effects achievcd With brilliant success. Al- 
"'""'^'"s though Fresh Water Cove was de- 
fended by one thousand Frenchmen behind 
entrenchments supported by a battery of eight 
cannon, Wolfe managed his landing so as to 
pass by their left flank, between it and the town, 
and there to attack them in such wise as to 
cut them off. Under these circumstances the 
Frenchmen abandoned their works and fled to 
the woods, whence they made a circuitous re- 
treat to their comrades in the town. After this 
auspicious beginning the remainder of the 
English army was safely landed, and ready for 
further operations. Troops were presently 
moved so as to threaten the communications 
of the Grand Battery at the north end of the 
harbour, whereupon the French abandoned it. 
The eastern side of the harbour ran in the 
shape of a sickle from the Grand Battery, 
terminating in a point opposite the point of the 
peninsula on which the city stood. The space 
of sea between these two points was the entrance 
to the harbour, and the small island already 



LOUISBURG 331 

mentioned, with its Island Battery, lay midway 
between them. Considering the great superior- 
ity of the English fleet, the French had felt it 
rash to keep a detachment upon the The harbour 
opposite point, where it was liable to batteries se- 

1 rr- 1 ^ r cured or 

be cut off, and they had therefore reduced by 
withdrawn it. Now Wolfe, with ^ ^ "^'^ 
twelve hundred men, marched past the Grand 
Battery and around the sickle-shaped shore and 
took possession of the works which the French 
had there abandoned, and from that point he 
kept up a heavy fire against the Island Battery 
until by June 25 all its guns were dismounted 
and silent. 

It now became possible for the English fleet 
to enter the harbour, and in order to ward off 
such a calamity, Drucour sank six ships at the 
entrance. Meanwhile, General Amherst was 
digging his trenches and building his parallels 
with prodigious labour over the treacherous 
ground behind the town. Gradually the English 
drew nearer, until they approached the very walls 
on both sides of the peninsula, and kept throw- 
ing shot and shell into the streets. Gradual 
In one adventure after another the Se French 
French ships were sunk or burned A^et 
until only five were left. On the 21st of July a 
bomb falling upon one of these penetrated her 
magazine and she blew up, communicating the 



332 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

flames to two sister ships, which were burned to 
the water's edge. A large part of the town had 
now taken fire, and the time of the besieged 
was largely consumed in fighting the flames ; 
then a party of six hundred English sailors In 
boats rowed into the harbour and seized the 
two remaining French ships ; one of them, a 
seventy-four, they burned ; while the other, a 
sixty-four, they made a prize and towed away. 
On the 26th of July the last gun in the 
row of French bastions was dismounted and a 
white flag was raised. The details of the sur- 
Surrender of fcnder wcrc Completed next day. It 
Louisburg ^^g ^ truly great victory, for the New 
England coast was at last relieved of a serious 
danger, and the way was opened for an English 
fleet to ascend the St. Lawrence. There was a 
general feeling that the glory of the achievement 
belonged to the youthful Wolfe more than to 
any one else. While the management of the 
whole affair, both by General Amherst and by 
Admiral Boscawen, had been admirable, yet in 
all Wolfe's operations there had been the artis- 
tic touch, so seldom witnessed, that marked real 
military genius, and along with all the intelli- 
gence, the quickness and sureness, there was an 
electric enthusiasm that communicated itself to 
the whole army, and wherever that tall, emaci- 
ated form was present, there was the centre of 
interest. 



FORT FRONTENAC 333 

It had been Wolfe's desire to follow up the 
capture of Louisburg by an immediate advance 
against Quebec, but the obstinate defence of 
Drucour had made it so late in the 

AVoIre re- 

season that it was thought best to post- turns to 
pone such an enterprise for the present, ^"s'^""* 
and Wolfe, who was seriously ill, went home to 
England for the winter, while Amherst took his 
army to the Hudson River with intent to re- 
lieve the situation at Lake George. 

Meanwhile in Abercrombie's camp there had 
been much despondency and grumbling since 
the terrible slaughter of the 8th of July. Dur- 
ing the summer more or less guerilla fighting 
went on, in the course of which Israel Put- 
nam was at one time taken prisoner and tied 
to a stake to be burned alive, but was res- 
cued by a French officer after the tongues of 
flame had actually begun to curl around him. 
Presently one of Abercrombie's officers. Colonel 
John Bradstreet, accomplished something which 
went far toward changing the face of things on 
the New York frontier. Bradstreet was a native 
of England, forty-six years of age, but most of 
his life had been spent in America. Among 
Shirley's officers he had been recognized as 
very capable ; he had taken part in the first 
capture of Louisburg, and in the present war 
he had been connected with the Oswego cam- 



334 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

paign. He now had reason to believe that such 
heavy demands had been made upon the French 
Bradstreet's rcsources in various directions that 
agabstF^rt ^^ inadequate force had been left to 
Frontenac guard Fort Frontcnac. He there- 
fore proposed to conduct an expedition for the 
capture of that important place. Lord Howe 
had favoured this plan, but Abercrombie had 
not regarded it with approval. At last, after a 
council of war had been held to consider the 
case, Bradstreet was allowed to undertake the 
task with a force of three thousand men, chiefly 
militia of New York and New England. On 
his march through the Oneida country he found 
occasion to observe that Montcalm's victory at 
Ticonderoga had wrought more or less disaf- 
fection toward the English even in the Long 
House. It was high time to do something to 
counteract this influence. Bradstreet kept on 
to the site of the ruined Oswego, and thence, 
crossing the lake in boats, pounced upon Fort 
Fort Fron Frontcnac and captured it, with its 
tenac taken, garrison of Only one hundred and ten 
"g"s ~7 jYien. He also took seventy cannon 
and mortars, nine sloops of war, and an enor- 
mous quantity of warlike material, provisions, 
and furs. It was impossible to make the best 
use of these captures without rebuilding Os- 
wego, so as to regain a seaport on the lake ; 



FORT FRONTS NAC 335 

but there did not seem to be men enough and 
time enough for this. General Stanwix was then 
building the fort known by his name, on the 
divide between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk 
valley, and that seemed to be all the construc- 
tive work that could then be undertaken. The 
walls of Fort Frontenac were battered down by 
its own cannon, and as much as possible of the 
military spoil was taken across the lake, whence 
some of it was carried away and the remainder 
destroyed. A thousand men were left to de- 
fend Fort Stanwix, and Bradstreet returned to 
the Hudson River. 

In this expedition Bradstreet dealt a blow 
second only, if second at all, to the capture 
of Louisburg. It is true the success was but 
partial ; a complete success would have meant 
the restoration of Oswego as a port on the 
route to Niagara. The building of Fort Stan- 
wix as a means of maintaining English influ- 
ence near the centre of the Long House did 
not quite supply the place of such a The loss of 
port ; nevertheless, the route to Niag- ^°'^ f™"- 

, . J , , ^ tenac weak- 

ara was laid open, and what was or ens Fort 
far greater importance, the communi- ^uquesne 
cations with Fort Duquesne were cut off. That 
all-important fortress was supplied through the 
long line of communication from the St. Law- 
rence River to the Niagara, and thence across 



336 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

Lake Erie to Presqu'Isle and Venango and down 
the Allegheny River. Among the munitions 
of war and other provisions captured at Fort 
Frontenac there was a great supply already on 
its way for Fort Duquesne. The exploit of 
Bradstreet left that remote strategic point in 
the air, and we have now to see how its con- 
quest was completed. 

Among the excellent officers sent by Pitt to 
America was a veteran Scotchman named John 
General Forbcs. He was a well-educated man, 

John Forbes ^^q \^^^ bccn for somc time a physi- 
cian before taking up the life of a soldier. He 
was frank, simple, honest, abounding in good 
sense, and very ready to learn from others. His 
weight of character, combined with kindliness, 
made him as much liked by the Americans as 
Braddock had been detested. It is a commen- 
tary upon Forbes's strong qualities that during 
his American campaign he was suffering from 
a severe illness which carried him off in the 
following spring. Among its symptoms was a 
severe gastric and intestinal inflammation which 
kept him a large part of the time in acute tor- 
ture, and it was commonly necessary for him 
The expe- to bc carHcd in a litter, so that this 
Fort"Du-'"'^ campaign might well be said to have 
quesne bccn conductcd by a man upon his 

death-bed. General Forbes, however, had two 
very active and capable lieutenants : one was 



FORT DUQUESNE 337 

George Washington ; the other was Lieutenant- 
Colonel Henry Bouquet, a native of Switzer- 
land, who had seen much service on the con- 
tinent of Europe and had entered the English 
service in 1756. He was destined a few years 
later, in Pontiac's war, to win a great reputa- 
tion. The army commanded by General Forbes 
with these able lieutenants consisted of about 
seven thousand men, partly British regulars, 
partly the ordinary provincial militia, and partly 
a force known as the Royal Americans and 
composed chiefly of Pennsylvania Germans. It 
was among these Royal Americans that Bou- 
quet held his commission. 

The first serious question was the choice of 
a route. Washington was in favour of the old 
route which had been taken by Brad- The choice 
dock, but Bouquet thought it would °f''°"t« 
be better to push westward through the moun- 
tains of Pennsylvania in a course more or less 
like that now taken by the railroad from Har- 
risburg to Pittsburg. The opinion of Bouquet 
found favour with General Forbes and that route 
was chosen. 

Forbes's method of advance was very dif- 
ferent from that of Braddock. Instead of ad- 
vancing through mile after mile of un- ^ , , 

" . ^ _ ... rorbes s 

known wilderness, taking with him im- method of 

mensely long baggage trains, Forbes's 

method was to clear the way and make some- 



338 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

thing of a road as he went along, building at in- 
tervals sundry blockhouses which might serve 
as temporary supports and magazines. This 
required a great amount of digging, hewing, 
blasting, and building, and was a truly Hercu- 
lean piece of work. Gradually, but surely, the 
rude road was carried over the ridges of the Al- 
leghanies and Laurel Hill, and finally at Loyal- 
hannon Creek the last magazine was built as a 
base for the final advance on Fort Duquesne, 
which was about fifty miles distant. 

One circumstance which reconciled Forbes 
to this slow method of advance was his know- 
ledge of the difficulty of holding Indian allies 
together for many weeks at a time without the 
stimulus of slaughter or plunder frequently re- 
newed. Vaudreuil had sent parties of Hurons, 
Miamis, Ottawas, and Pottawattamies to the 
The slow ^id of Fort Duquesne, and earnestly 
progress of hopcd that the English would not 

the march ' . i -i i 

favourable deicr their approach until these war- 
to success j.jQj.g s|-,Quld have grown tired and 
gone home. Forbes appreciated this point and 
was willing to give them time to get tired. He 
had much reason to expect that delay would 
work in his favour, inasmuch as the advance of 
so large a force as seven thousand men could 
not fail to produce a notable moral effect upon 
the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingos, and he 



FORT DUQUESNE 339 

entertained strong hopes of winning back these 
tribes to the English alliance.' 

At this juncture it was especially important 
that no opportunity should be afforded the 
enemy of inflicting even the slightest reverse 
upon the English advance, since the moral 
effect which might thus be produced upon the 
Indians was likely to be out of all proportion 
with the importance of the affair itself. 

Now there was in the English army a hot- 
headed and ill-balanced Scotch officer named 
James Grant. He was a supercilious sort of 
person, and looked down with ineffable con- 
tempt upon the provincial troops. It was very 
irksome to Major Grant to be within fifty miles 
of Fort Duquesne and not engage in some kind 
of work more exciting than that of spade and 
pickaxe ; so he sought and obtained permission 
from Bouquet to take a thousand men and go 
forward to reconnoitre the situation. Major 
Grant went forward, but did not re- ^t7o"u?re-'' 
turn until he had provoked a fight connoissance 
with the enemy, in which he was ignominiously 
defeated with a loss of one quarter of his force. 
This Grant was afterward a member of Par- 
liament, and served in the British army during 
a large part of the Revolutionary War. He is 

1 [Cf. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, ii. 141, 142, where 
the letters of Vaudreuil and Forbes, describing their plans, 
are quoted.] 



340 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

now perhaps best remembered for a remark 
which he made in the House of Commons in 
1774, to the effect that the Americans were an 
undiscipHned rabble who would take to their 
heels at the first sound of a cannon. But two 
years after that unlucky speech, when he met 
Smallwood's Marylanders at the battle of Long 
Island and pounded them four hours without 
making them give up an inch of ground, he 
found reason to amend his opinion.^ 

Grant's defeat near Fort Duquesne occurred 
about the middle of September, and three weeks 
afterwards a convention of Indian chiefs was 
assembled at Easton in Pennsylvania. This 
conference was brought about by the earnest 
persuasion of General Forbes and the wise co- 
operation of Sir William Johnson. It will be 
remembered that while the Mohawk end of the 
Long House, where Johnson had his home, 
was firmly attached to the English cause, yet 
through the rest of the confederacy symptoms 
of vacillation were sometimes seen, and at the 
Seneca end French interests now and then pre- 
vailed. The recent capture of Fort Frontenac 
by Bradstreet had done much to discredit the 
French in the minds of the Senecas, and could 
these Indians, with the tribes southwest of 
them, be induced once more to make common 

^ [Fiske, The American Revolution, i. 243-245.] 



FORT DUQUESNE 341 

cause with the English, it was clear that Fort 
Duquesne would become untenable. To this 
end was exerted all the influence of Sir William 
Johnson over the Senecas, while at the same 
time a memorable triumph of diplo- christian 
macy was effected by the noble Mo- Frederic 

. . -, . . T- J • Post wins 

ravian missionary, Christian brederic over the 
Post, who at the Easton conference ^"'*'^"' 
won the alliance of the Delawares, Shawnees, 
and Mingos.^ This achievement sealed the 
doom of Fort Duquesne. It was isolated in a 
hostile country without means of supply. Its 
French militia from New Orleans and the Illi- 
nois country departed in boats down the Ohio. 
Its painted and feathered allies from Detroit 
and Green Bay tramped off through the many- 
hued autumn forests in the haze of Indian 
summer, and presently the French commander 
retired with his garrison up the Al- ^^^ French 
legheny River to Lake Erie and so evacuate Fort 
to Montreal. When Washington and "'i"""^ 
Bouquet arrived at Fort Duquesne they found 
it dismantled and partially destroyed. There 
was not time enough, so late in the season, 
to rebuild it properly, but around the clus- 
ter of traders' cabins that had gathered there 
a stockade was built, and the embryo village 
was named Pittsburg, in honour of the great 

^ [Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, ii. 142—150, gives in- 
teresting extracts from Post's Journali\ 



342 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

war minister.^ In the following year General 
Stanwix came there and built Fort Pitt. The 
gallant Forbes, after lingering all winter on the 
brink of the grave, died in March, and was 
buried in Christ Church, Philadelphia.^ 

Great were the rejoicings in Pennsylvania 
and Virginia, as well as in all the other Eng- 
lish colonies, over this auspicious capture of 
the Gateway of the West. But neither this nor 
any other conquest could be deemed finally 
secure so long as the French maintained them- 
selves in Canada. Pitt was one who well under- 
stood the sound military maxim that in war, 
until everything has been done, nothing has 
Pitt resolved bccn donc, and he entered upon the 
FrenihMom Y^^^ ^759 ^ith the firm intention 
Canada of driving the French from America 

altogether ; and what had been done on both 
sides of the globe was only the prelude to 
heavier blows. " We are forced to ask every 
morning," wrote Horace Walpole, "what new 
victory there is, for fear of missing one." Ter- 
rible was the catalogue of French defeats in 

^ [<* I have used the freedom of giving your name to fort 
du Quesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actu- 
ated by your spirit that now makes me master of the place." 
Forbes to Pitt, Nov. 27, 1758. Kingsford, History of Can- 
ada, iv. 213.]] 

^ [For the literature of this campaign, see Winsor, Narr. 
and Crit. Hist., v. 599.] 



DEFKSCr.S Of (JlUEBEC 
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THE FALL OF QUEBEC 343 

1759. Their army in Germany was routed at 
Minden by Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick ; 
one great fleet was defeated at Lagos Bay by 
Admiral Boscawen, and another was annihilated 
at Quiberon by Sir Edward Hawke; Havre was 
bombarded by Admiral Rodney ; Guadeloupe, 
the most valuable of the French West Indies, 
was taken ; and serious reverses were experi- 
enced in India. 

In America prodigious exertions were made. 
Massachusetts raised seven thousand men, and 
during the year contributed more Preparations 
than a million dollars toward the ex- °^' f- „ 

campaign 

penses of the war. Connecticut raised 0^1759 
five thousand troops ; New Hampshire and 
Rhode Island furnished one thousand between 
them ; New York raised twenty-six hundred 
and eighty ; New Jersey, one thousand ; Penn- 
sylvania, twenty-seven hundred ; Virginia, two 
thousand ; and South Carolina, twelve hun- 
dred and fifty. These, together with twenty- 
two thousand British regulars and other special 
levies of provincial troops, made an aggregate 
of somewhat more than fifty thousand collected 
for the overthrow of the French power in 
America. 

With regard to the strategy with which this 
force was to be used, it bears the marks, of 
course, of the pre-Napoleonic age. The weak 
points in eighteenth-century strategy were the 



344 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

insufficient concentration of resources and the 
persistence in advancing against objective points 
Weak points by mcans of converging lines. Such 
century^^" ' ^rrors wcrc often enough repeated in 
strategy the nineteenth century with less ex- 

cuse. Since now, for the first time in the great 
war, the capture of Quebec entered into the 
plan of campaign, the more modern method 
would have been to concentrate everything 
upon that one point and to avoid expending 
energy in subordinate matters, however im- 
portant, such as the capture of Fort Niagara, 
or the reestablishment of Oswego, inasmuch 
as success in the greater undertaking would 
carry with it success along the whole line. 
Nevertheless, the policy of diffused attack was 
more in accordance with the mental habits of 
that time, and Amherst, the commander-in- 
chief, though a capable general, was not a man 
of great originality. His plan was to complete 
the victories at the west and insure 

General Am- 
herst's plan the safety of Pittsburg by sending an 
campaign expedition westward to restore Os- 
wego and take Niagara. At the same time the 
principal blow should be struck at Quebec by 
General Wolfe, assisted by the fleet under Ad- 
miral Saunders. As for Lake Champlain, Am- 
herst undertook to clear the French from there 
and proceed against Montreal, in the hope 
either of taking that city and advancing against 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 345 

Quebec, or, at least, of creating a diversion 
that would lighten Wolfe's task. The subor- 
dinate parts of this scheme were carried out 
with a creditable measure of success, yet not 
such as to take away from Wolfe the necessity 
for doing the impossible. As often happens in 
warfare, the shortcomings of the average in- 
tellect were repaired by the presence of some 
heaven-sent genius. 

We may first note the fortunes of the west- 
ern expedition which started from Albany under 
General Prideaux, with Sir William Gg^erai 
Johnson second in command. The Pndeaux's 
work to be accomplished by this force against Fort 
was important, and five thousand men ^'^e^" 
were prudently allotted to it. General Prideaux 
was to garrison the new Fort Stanwix, and pro- 
ceeding thence to the shore of Lake Ontario 
was to leave half of his troops under Colonel 
Haldimand ^ to restore and defend Oswego, 
while he himself with the remainder of the army 
should move against Fort Niagara. The wis- 

^ [On Haldimand' s interesting career and invaluable ser- 
vices to American history, see Kingsford, History of Caiiada, 
iv. 317, 318. Like Bouquet, he was a Swiss by birth. He 
gathered together two hundred and thirty-two volumes of 
manuscripts relating to American history for the years 1758— 
1785, which are now in the British Museum. They have 
been copied for the Canadian Archives, and have been calen- 
dared in Brymner's Reports. Cf. Winsor, Narr. and Grit. 
Hist., viii. 461.] 



346 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

dom of leaving a strong force at Oswego was 
presently demonstrated when the French came 
across Lake Ontario to attack it. The pressure 
upon Quebec had become so heavy that it was 
not easy to find men enough for this western 
work, and one thousand men were all that could 
be gathered. This party, commanded by the 
partisan chieftain La Corne, made a demonstra- 
tion upon the camp at Oswego, but was re- 
pulsed with considerable loss, and retired from 
the scene. 

Fort Niagara, situated at the mouth of the 
Niagara River, was bravely defended by its 
commander, Pouchot. In the course of the en- 
gagement Prideaux was killed by a shell, and 
the command devolved upon Johnson. Cut off, 
as Pouchot was, from all help from the east, his 
fate was only a question of time unless some- 
thing could be done in his behalf by the militia 
and Indians of the west. A force had been 
gathered together from Detroit and the Sault 
Ste. Marie, from Green Bay and the Illinois 
Fall of Fort Rivcr, consisting of about eleven hun- 
Niagara drcd Frenchmen with two hundred In- 

dians under command of the able leaders Marin, 
Aubry, and Ligneris, who had been the last 
commander at Fort Duquesne. The original 
object of this western muster had been to retrieve 
the last autumn's disaster and take Pittsburg 
from the English ; but the Frenchmen had only 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 347 

advanced as far as Presqu'Isle and Le Boeuf 
when a message from Pouchot summoned them 
to come to the rescue at Fort Niagara. They 
made all haste in that direction, but on arriving 
in the neighbourhood were encountered by Sir 
William Johnson and totally defeated, losing all 
their principal leaders, who were taken prison- 
ers. Nothing was left for Pouchot but to sur- 
render his fortress and men. This surrender, 
which was made on the 24th of July, was the 
final blow to the French in the west. 

While these things were going on at Niagara, 
General Amherst with thirteen thousand men 
was advancing from the Hudson River upon 
Ticonderoga. The terrible defences which 
Montcalm had built, and which had cost Aber- 
crombie two thousand men in his attempt to 
carry them by storm, were still in position and 
once more confronted the brave men who re- 
turned to the spot. Montcalm was no longer in 
command, having been called away to Quebec 
to defend that supreme position Genera] Am- 
against the expedition led by Wolfe. ^gT^^T?" 
Ticonderoga was now commanded by conderoga 
General Bourlamaque, who made as few signs 
of life as possible. Amherst was a man not given 
to erring on the side of rashness. Such an at- 
tempt as Abercrombie's he would never have 
thought of making ; so he drew up his army 



348 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

before the works and studied the situation. His 
meditations were interrupted by a stupendous 
explosion which scattered one of the forts in 
Ticonderoga fragments through the air, Hke a gi- 
deserted and gantic Roman candle. This explo- 

blown up . . , . , 

sion represented the partial success 
of the Frenchmen's attempt to destroy the 
fort. Bourlamaque had been instructed by Vau- 
dreuil not to offer serious resistance at either 
Ticonderoga or Crown Point, where a defeat 
would endanger his being cut off; but, on the 
other hand, he was to withdraw the whole length 
of Lake Champlain to the river Richelieu, and 
there make a determined stand, where his line 
of retreat would be tolerably secure. In these 
prudent instructions we see how great had been 
the change of animus in the French command- 
ers during the past twelve months. They had 
ceased to despise their adversary. 

The faults of Amherst as a commander now 
come into the foreground. He was a safe and 
prudent commander, not likely to commit 
any startling blunder, but his movements were 
marked by excessive deliberation. Instead of 
pushing and harassing Bourlamaque with might 
and main, he devoted too much attention to the 
restoration and repair of the forts at Ticonde- 
roga and Crown Point, a kind of work which 
might have been left for another season. Ami- 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 349 

herst was the commander-in-chief, whose objec- 
tive point was some position where he might 
cooperate with his subordinate, Wolfe, , ^ , 

f^ ' _ ' Amherst s 

in what all agreed to be the crowning ineffective 
operation of the war, if it should prove ""^"""^^ 
successful. If he could not directly cooperate 
with Wolfe, his next best course was to compel 
Montcalm to weaken his own force for the sake 
of helping Bourlamaque ; and the only practi- 
cable way of doing this was to push Bourlamaque 
with all possible persistence and fury ; but this 
Amherst was far from doing. His conduct of 
the campaign was busy, but languid, and the 
month of September arrived before any pro- 
gress had been made in disturbing the French 
lines at Isle aux Noix. 

Thus the problem of taking Quebec was left 
for Wolfe to solve alone, and after his own 
fashion. It seems hardly necessary to cumber 
the narrative with the numerous details of the 
summer's disappointing work. The principal 
elements in the problem were as follows : — 

The city of Quebec stands on the summit of 
a cliff at least two hundred feet in height at the 
junction of the St. Charles River with 
the St. Lawrence. It occupies the 
apex of the cliff between the two rivers, and 
looks eastward down the St. Lawrence. Below 
the St. Charles the distance down the north side 



350 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

of the St. Lawrence to the Montmorenci is six 
miles. The bank is rather low, but precipitous, 
with a low beach at its foot, and for some 
distance from this beach the river is shallow. 
Nearly opposite the magnificent cataract of two 
hundred and fifty feet by which the Montmo- 
renci discharges itself is the island of Orleans in 
mid-stream. Between this large island and the 
city of Quebec six miles up-stream the width of 
the river is not less than two miles, and it is 
often called the Basin. In passing Quebec, a 
name which means " The Narrow Place," the 
stream narrows to less than twelve hundred 
yards, so that in Wolfe's time the city could be 
reached by batteries planted on the south side 
of the stream at Point Levi, although the French 
had been disinclined to believe this. 

When Wolfe came up the river in June he 
encamped his army upon the island of Orleans 
and upon the mainland at Point Levi and sur- 
veyed the situation. The French army, four- 
The position ^^^" thousand strong, was encamped 
of the French behind cntrenchmcnts along the six 
miles of low cliff between the St. 
Charles River and the falls of Montmorenci. 
The lofty cliff above the city had small sentry 
parties posted at intervals along the summit, 
while eight miles above, a force of twenty-three 
hundred men under Bougainville was posted at 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 351 

Cap Rouge. The purpose of this latter detach- 
ment was to check and give timely warning of 
any possible movement from above on the part 
of Amherst, should he succeed in getting into 
that part of the world. Now Wolfe was good 
enough general to know that Montcalm's army 
was his chief objective point in a deeper sense 
than Quebec. Unless he should crush the French 
army, the position of Quebec would be of small 
use to him, while with the army once disposed 
of, Quebec would drop into his hands like a 
ripe apple. The difficult question was, how to 
get at the French army. Their position between 
the St. Charles and the Montmorenci was sim- 
ply inaccessible. They could not be reached 
from English batteries south of the river, and 
it was impossible for any English force to turn 
their left flank without putting itself into a very 
dangerous position, where it would be liable to be 
cut off from the fleet which served as its base. 
The greater part of July was spent by Wolfe in 
inspecting the eastern bank of the Montmo- 
renci to see if there were any means of attacking 
there ; but no available place was found, and 
with all his dare-devil courage, Wolfe was not 
the man to risk useless sacrifice of life. Be- 
sides, even if a vigorous attack could have been 
made at that point, the French could easily 
withdraw, for their supplies came to them from 



352 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

the west. A flank attack on the west of their 
The difficui- line by the St. Charles River would 
confront have compelled them to .stand and 
Wolfe fight, where defeat meant ruin. But 

for the English to land in that locality was sim- 
ply impossible. On the last day of July, appar- 
ently for the sake of doing something or other, 
Wolfe landed a considerable force on the low 
ground just above the Montmorenci. That he 
did not intend to storm is obvious, for when 
some of his brave regiments rushed forward, it 
was entirely without orders, in pursuit of a sud- 
den impulse, and a deadly fire from the French 
infantry soon made them recoil. A large part 
of the month of August was spent by the young 
general on a sick-bed, attacked by a complica- 
tion of diseases from which there vvas small hope 
of recovery ; he begged only to live long enough 
to solve the problem which Pitt had laid before 
him. To his physician he exclaimed, " Oh, 
Doctor, just patch me up enough for this busi- 
ness and I '11 ask no more ! " It was 

His illness . 

probably while tossmg on that fever- 
ish couch that his mind began playing with the 
thought which presently developed into a stern 
resolve. If a landing could not be effected at 
the St. Charles in face of a greatly superior 
force, how might it be with the heights above 
the city, which were watched only by small par- 
ties of sentinels .? Wolfe went up the river with 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 353 

boats and inspected the bank for himself, and 
about two miles above the city, at a place called 
Anse du Foulon, he detected a zigzag path 
which he rightly judged led to the summit of 
the well-nigh perpendicular cliff, though its 
course was in great part hidden by stout bushes. 
At the summit of this cliff the point of land 
upon which the city stood opened out into a 
wide plateau, known from some old 
settler as the Plains of Abraham. If to scale the 
a force could be landed here it would ^'^ '^ 
compel Montcalm to come and attack, for other- 
wise his food supply would be cut off. With 
this end in view Wolfe increased the activity of 
his men in all directions. The batteries at Point 
Levi had been throwing shot and shell into the 
city for several weeks, and had reduced large 
portions of it to ruins. The bombardment now 
became more furious than ever. One move 
which he made quite puzzled Montcalm, but 
conveyed no hint of what was really contem- 
plated ; the greater part of the British force was 
moved up the river to Cap Rouge, where such 
demonstrations were made as completely to ab- 
sorb the attention of Bougainville. Montcalm 
was inclined to regard the movement as the final 
embarking of the British army preparatory to 
sailing down-stream and away, for his mind 
could conceive no possible alternative for Wolfe 
except the abandonment of the enterprise. With 



354 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

regard to Wolfe himself, while his attitude was 
one of grim determination, it can hardly be said 
to have been hopeful. The expedient was one 
from which success might come, and was there- 
fore preferable to a confession of failure. One 
circumstance upon which he rested some hope 
was the fact that boats now and then succeeded 
in stealing down under the black shadow of the 
lofty bank with provisions for the French army 
below. On the 12th of September all was in 
readiness, and Wolfe made such demonstrations 
below the city that Montcalm began to think 
that a landing at the mouth of the St. Charles 
might be intended, and that thus the Lord was 
delivering his enemy into his hands. At the 
Final pre- samc time, the demonstrations against 
parations Bougainvillc wcrc redoubled, and 
English ships kept moving from point to point 
in such wise as to strain every nerve of the 
watchful and bewildered French. In the course 
of the day Wolfe called to him his friend Jervis, 
afterward celebrated as an admiral, and told him 
that he had a presentiment of impending death ; 
and taking from about his neck a small chain 
with the miniature of the lady to whom he was 
betrothed, he gave it to Jervis to be returned 
to her in case he should not survive the antici- 
pated battle. As midnight approached, all was 
silence at Cap Rouge, but such demonstrations 
were made below the city that Montcalm was 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 355 

on horseback all night, expecting an attack at 
the St. Charles. Meanwhile, at the gleaming of 
a lantern at the masthead of one of the ships, 
sixteen hundred men dropped into their boats 
and waited for the ebb of the tide. Then, at the 
momentary flash of another lantern, 

, , , . , . , The start 

all began rowmg down-stream m the 
dark shadow of the cliff. Twice they were chal- 
lenged by sentinels above, but an officer who 
spoke French fluently replied that they were 
boats with provisions for Montcalm. 

Wolfe sat buried in thought, occasionally 
repeating aloud verses from Gray's " Elegy," 
which had been published a few years before, 
and one line, 

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave," 

betrayed what was passing in his mind. " Gen- 
tlemen," he said to the officers with him, " I 
would rather be the author of that poem than 
take Quebec." When they reached the land- 
ing-place, the head of the column 
went ashore, under the lead of Wil- 
liam Howe, youngest brother of the general 
who had been killed at Ticonderoga. As the 
sixteen hundred landed, the zigzag path was 
overcrowded, but there were so many bushes 
as to affiard an abundance of handles and foot- 
holds on that steep precipice. The height of 
the climb was a little over two hundred feet, 



356 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

or about the same as that of Bunker Hill 
Monument. But at length it was safely accom- 
plished, and just as the first streaks of dawn 
glimmered on the eastern horizon, the gallant 
Howe with his men leaped upon the summit 
and scattered the French sentinels, who were 
seized with panic and stood not upon the order 
of their going. It was still early dawn when the 
sixteen hundred were drawn up in order on 
the Plains of Abraham. Other boats were fol- 
lowing close behind, and by six o'clock three 
thousand more had climbed the rocky wall. 
The alarm was now spreading in many direc- 
tions, but it was a long march for any of the 
French forces to reach the spot where Wolfe 
stood. When the tidings came to Montcalm 
his countenance fell. " This is a very 

Complete _ _ . . •' 

surprise of scrious busincss," he said, and in- 
stantly put a large portion of his force 
under marching orders. Not a moment was to be 
lost, for Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham was 
in possession of his line of communication. 
Nothing was to be done but to go and fight 
the English in a position where defeat meant 
destruction. By nine o'clock in the morning 
Montcalm had about five thousand men on 
the plateau, while Wolfe was waiting for the 
numbers of the French to reach a point where 
their defeat might be final ; for now Wolfe had 
good grounds for confidently expecting victory. 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 357 

Only two thousand of the force opposed to him 
were French regulars. The rest were Canadian 
militia, unsurpassed in bush fighting, but hardly 
fit to withstand a charge of British grenadiers. 
The attack was made by the French, 

, 1 , r 1-1 • • The battle 

who rushed rorward with great spirit. 
Wolfe's orders to his men, like those of Pres- 
cott in later days at Bunker Hill, were to with- 
hold their fire until the enemy were within very 
close range. This order was strictly obeyed. 
When the volley was delivered, it made sad 
havoc in the French ranks, and when the Brit- 
ish followed it with a solid bayonet charge on 
the double-quick, the French line was hope- 
lessly broken. The firing in some parts of the 
field remained very brisk on both sides. In 
crossing an exposed place Wolfe received a 
ball in the wrist which shattered the arm, but 
he tied it up with his handkerchief and kept 
on. Presently a second ball struck him in the 
groin without causing him to stop, and almost 
immediately afterward a third passed through 
one of his lungs. As he staggered, he was 
seized by four men, who carried him to the 
rear and laid him upon the ground. He was 
already somewhat comatose, when one of the 
officers exclaimed, " My God ! see how they 
run ! " " Who run ? " exclaimed Wolfe, rousing 
himself. " The enemy," replied the officer, " is 
giving way everywhere." The young general's 



358 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND 

eyes lighted up once more as he eagerly cried 
Death of o^t, " Go, onc of you, my lads, to 
Wolfe Colonel Burton and tell him to march 

down to the Charles River Bridge and cut off 
their retreat ; " then, turning upon his side, he 
murmured, " Now, God be praised, I will die 
in peace," 

For Montcalm, too, the final summons had 
come, and he was no more to see the beautiful 
Provencal home for which he had so wearily 
yearned. As he was approaching one of the 
gates of the city, mounted on his black horse, 
a bullet was lodged in his chest, which in the 
intensity of excitement he seemed hardly to 
feel. As he passed through the gate a party 
Death of of women, seeing the blood stream- 
Montcaim ;j-,g (Jown his waistcoat, burst into 
loud lamentations : " He is killed ! The Mar- 
quis is killed ! " " Do not weep for me, my 
children," said he ; " it 's nothing." But, as he 
said the words, he fell from his horse and was 
caught in the arms of his officers. When the 
surgeon informed him that the wound was mor- 
tal, his reply was, " So much the better. I shall 
not live to see Quebec surrendered." 

Thus came to a close one of the greatest 
scenes in the history of mankind, the final act 
in the drama which gave the North American 
continent into the keeping of the English race 
instead of the French ; and perhaps there has 



THE FALL OF QUEBEC 359 

never been a historic drama in which the lead- 
ing parts have been played by men of nobler 
stuff" than Montcalm and Wolfe. After the fall 
of Quebec there could be no doubt that the 
fate of Canada was decided. The capture of 
Montreal by Amherst in the following sum- 
mer was like an appendix to a tale already told. 



INDEX 



Abenakis, Algonquin Indians in 
Maine, 235. See a/so Norridge- 
wock . 

Abercrombie, James, English gen- 
eral, arrives with Loudoun, 306 ; 
commands on the Hudson, 317 ; 
expedition against Ticonderoga, 
318-323; assault, 324; retreat, 
325 ; ridiculed, 325. 

Acadia, meaning of the word, 50 ; 
occupation by Monts, 50-58 ; 
Madame de Guercheville buys 
Monts's claim, 76 ; restored to 
France, 92, 97 ; Alexander's 
grant, 93 ; La Tour's rule, 93, 
94 ; contest between La Tour 
and D'Aunay, 94—96 ; conquest 
by New England, 96 ; Temple's 
grant, 96 ; passes finally to Eng- 
land, 234 ; extent, 234, 249. 
See also Canada, Port Royal. 

Adirondacks, Algonquin Indians in 
Canada, 43, 63. 

Africa, Dieppe traders on western 
coast, 2. 

Albany Congress, purpose, 279 ; at- 
tendance, 279 ; plan of union, 
280. 

Alexander, Sir William, grant of 
Nova Scotia, 93. 

Algonquin Indians, displace Iroquois 
on the St. Lawrence, 42 ; fruit- 
ful stock, 43 ; friendship neces- 
sary to the French, 63, 64 ; 
character of Canadian, 64 ; in 
Maine, 235 ; tribes in the Ohio 
valley, 263. 

Allefonsce, Jean, Roberval's lieu- 
tenant, sent to find Verrazano 



Sea, 24 ; mistaken ideas on his 
voyage, 25 ; narrative, 26 ; Vu- 
menot's account, 26 ; true coizrse, 
27 ; on the Hudson River, 27 ; 
probable object of voyage, 28 ; 
rejoins Roberval, 31 ; death, 32. 

AUouez, Claude, Jesuit missionary, 
explores Lake Superior, loi ; 
hears of the Mississippi, 106 ; 
oration to the Indians, 108. 

America considered the Devil's do- 
main, 144. 

Amherst, Sir JefFry, English com- 
mander-in-chief in America, 317; 
expedition against Louisburg, 329- 
332 ; goes to the Hudson, 333 ; 
plan of campaign for 1759, 344 ; 
advance on Ticonderoga, 347 ; 
fails to support Wolfe, 348 ; cap- 
tures Montreal, 359. 

Andastes, name for the Susquehan- 
nocks, 48. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, preserves 
friendship of Iroquois, 103 ; rule 
in Massachusetts, 202. 

Annapolis, N. S. See Port Royal. 

Antinomianism and the Great Awak- 
ening, 228. 

Argall, Samuel, attacks the French 
at Mount Desert, 77-79 ; burns 
Port Royal, 79. 

Army, English, Braddock's force, 
281 ; ignorant of Indian warfare, 
283 ; character of Johnson's force, 
296 ; rank of colonial officers, 
308; Abercrombie's force, 318; 
force against Louisburg, 329 ; 
Forbes's force, 337; in 1759, 
343- 



362 



INDEX 



Army, French, force sent over with 
Diesk.au, 281 ; character of the 
Indian allies, 308, 310, 313-315 ; 
at Quebec, 350. 

Assemblies, colonial, reluctance to 
grant funds, 242, 262, 272, 273, 
277, 285. 

Attiwendaronks, kin to the Five 
Nations, 48 ; refuse to join the 
confederacy, 48 ; consequent an- 
nihilation, 49. 

Aubert, Thomas, alleged voyage on 
St. Lawrence River, 4-6. 

Aubry, French partisan, unsuccess- 
ful attempt to relieve Fort Niagara, 
346- 

Austrian Succession, war of the, 
248, 249. 

Baptists profit by the Great Awaken- 
ing, 231. 

Baxter, Joseph, Puritan missionary 
in Maine, controversy with Rale, 
239. 

Beaujeu, second in command at Fort 
Duquesne, 288 ; waylays Brad- 
dock, 289 ; death, 290. 

Bethencourt, Jean de, Norman 
knight, colonizes Canary Islands, 

Biencourt, son of Poutrincourt, in 
France, 72, 75 ; and Argall, 79 ; 
rebuilds Port Royal, 79 ; death, 

93- 
Booth, Elizabeth, and the Salem 

witchcraft, 160. See also Salem 

Village. 
Boscawen, Edward, English admiral, 

expedition against Louisburg, 329. 
Boston, Ann Hibbins witchcraft case, 

146-148 ; Goodwin witchcraft 

case, 148, 152-155. 
Boulle, Helen, marries Champlain, 

80 ; in Canada, 89 ; religious 

zeal, 89. 
Bouquet, Henry, English colonel, 

with Forbes, 337. 
Bourlamaque, Chevalier de, French 



general, evacuates Ticonderoga, 

347- 

Braddock, Edward, English general, 
sent to America, 281 ; prepara- 
tion to march against Fort Du- 
quesne, 283, 285 ; character, 
283 J underestimates the Indians 
and militia, 283-285, 287 ; 
mistake in route, 286 ; march, 
286-288 ; not ambushed, 289 ; 
defeat, 290; bravery, 291 ; death, 
292 ; retreat ot his forces, 292. 

Bradstreet, John, trial for witchcraft, 
148. 

Bradstreet, John, English colonel, 
ability, 333 j captures Fort Fron- 
tenac, 334. 

Brattle, Thomas, liberal views, 203 ; 
gives land for Brattle Church, 
204. 

Brattle, William, liberal views, 203. 

Brattle Church, Boston, founded, 
204 ; conditions of membership, 
204 5 recognized, 206. 

Brazil, Huguenot colony, 33. 

Brebeuf, Jean de, Jesuit missionary, 
arrives in Canada, 89. 

Brittany, France, race characteristics, 
I ; mariners, 2 ; interest in New- 
foundland fisheries, 3 ; objects to 
trade monopoly in Canada, 36, 57. 

Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga, 323. 

Burnet, William, governor of New 
York, builds fort at Oswego, 
262. 

Burroughs, George, arrested for 
witchcraft, 168 j accusation, 173; 
execution, 186. 

Bury St. Edmunds, England, witch- 
craft trial, 138-140. 

Cahiague, Canada, Huron village, 

Champlain at, 86. 
Calef, Robert, and Cotton Mather, 

150; on the witchcraft trials, 

163 n., 186. 
Cambridge, Mass., execution of a 

witch, 146. 



INDEX 



363 



Cambridge Platform, fall, 206 ; some 
results, 214. 

Canada, early explorations, 5, 7 j 
early attempt at settlement, 6 j 
Carrier's explorations, 13—22; 
first use of name, 15 ; Roberval's 
attempted colony, 22—24, 29—32 ; 
fur-trade monopoly, 36-38, 49, 
57, 59, 60; Champlain's first 
voyage, 42 ; change in Indian in- 
habitants, 42-44; Champlain's 
second voyage, 60 ; first settle- 
ment, 60 ; beginnings of Indian 
policy, 62-65, 7°> 7^ 5 Indian 
missionaries, 86, 89, 103 ; rivalry 
of interests, 88 ; Richelieu's mea- 
sures for settlement, 90 ; religious 
uniformity required, 91 ; captured 
by the English in 1628, 91 ; re- 
stored to France, 92 ; inland ex- 
plorations, 98-101, 106; inter- 
est of Louis XIV., loi ; policy 
of development, 104 ; route to 
the interior, 104; possession taken 
of the Northwest, 107-109; La 
Salle's expedition to the Ohio, 
111-115; exploration of the 
Mississippi, 117— 120; scheme 
for empire in the Mississippi val- 
ley, 120-122, 132; Louisiana 
added to French possessions, i 30 ; 
irrepressible conflict with English 
colonies, 233, 239 ; importance 
of Kennebec River to, 234 ; 
policy against English settlements, 
239, 241 ; loss of the control of 
the Kennebec, 244; loss of Louis- 
burg in 1745, ^49-^56 ; develop- 
ment of scheme of empire, 258 ; 
menace in the English advance 
into the Ohio valley, 261, 264 ; 
decline of influence over the In- 
dians, 261—264; possession and 
occupation of Ohio valley, 264- 
273 ; restored control of the in- 
terior, 309 ; strategic points, 326 ; 
Pitt resolves to destroy, 342 ; 
English conquer, 358. See alio 



Acadia, French and Indian War, 
Newfoundland. 
Canary Islands, Bethencourt colo- 
nizes, 2. 
Caniengas, name for Mohawks, 45. 
Canseau, Nova Scotia, captured by 

the French, 250. 
Cape Breton, named, 4. 
Cartier, Jacques, early career, 13 ; 
first voyage, 1 3 ; second voyage, 
14 ; explores St. Lawrence River, 
14; at Stadacona, 15; visit to 
Hochelaga, 1 6-20 ; winter quar- 
ters at Stadacona, 20 ; return 
voyage, 21 ; captain-general, 22 ; 
third voyage, 23 ; and Roberval, 
24 ; brings Roberval back to 
France, 31 ; death, 32. 
Caughnawaga, Canada, village of 

converted Iroquois, 262. 
Cavelier family, 109. See also La 

SaUe. 
Cavelier, Jean, brother of La Salle, 

no. 
Cayugas, Iroquois Indians, 45 ; 
segregated from the Onondagas, 
47. See also Iroquois. 
Celoron de Bienville, takes possession 
of Ohio valley for France, 264- 
266 ; and La Demoiselle, 266. 
Champlain, Samuel, birth, 38 ; re- 
ligion, 39, 59, 81 ; character, 
39, 58, 92 ; in the West Indies 
and Mexico, 40 ; suggests a canal 
at Panama, 41 ; and Pontgrave, 
41 ; first voyage to Canada, 42 ; 
on coast of New England, 52-55 ; 
purpose of the exploration, 53, 
55 ; greering at Port Royal, 55 ; 
his knightly Order of Good Times, 
57 ; interest in Canada, 58 ; re- 
turn to Canada, 60 ; founds Que- 
bec, 60 ; puts down treason, 61 ; 
makes alliance with Algonquins 
and Hurons, 62-64 5 ^"'^'^ expedi- 
tion against the Iroquois, 65-70 ; 
great consequences, 70, 71 ; sec- 
ond encounter with the Iroquois, 



364 



INDEX 



80 ; married, 80 ; founds Mon- 
treal, 8 1 5 viceregal lieutenant, 

81 ; controls the fur-trade, 82 ; 
interests merchants, 82 ; seeks the 
western sea, 83 ; among the Ot- 
tawas, 83 ; brings Recollets to 
Canada, 86 ; attacks an Iroquois 
village, 86—88 j defends (Quebec 
against Kirke, 91 ; surrenders, 
92 ; governor, 92 ; last days, 92. 

Charles River, Mass., Champlain 
enters, 53. 

Charlestown, Mass., execution of a 
witch, I4<;. 

Charlevoix, P. F. X. de, Jesuit his- 
torian, on the coureurs de bois, 
106. 

Charter, new, for Massachusetts, 
202. See also Grants. 

Chastes, Aymar de, aid to Henry 
IV., 37; joins Pontgrave's mo- 
nopoly, 38 ; death, 49. 

Chauvin, Pierre, monopoly of the 
fur-trade, 36 ; death, 37. 

Chesapeake Bay and Verrazano Sea, 
II. 

Church and State in Massachusetts, 
opposition to theocracy and growth 
of Toryism, 197, 201 ; overthrow 
of theocracy, 202, 205. 

Churchill, Sarah, and the Salem 
witchcraft, 1 60. See also Salem 
Village. 

Clergy of Massachusetts and the 
Salem witchcraft, 170-172. 

Colman, Benjamin, liberal views, 
203 ; pastor of Brattle Church, 
204. 

Colonies, English, purpose, 104; 
frontier growth, 237, 2.59, 263 ; 
incite Indian raids, 240 ; gov- 
ernors and legislatures, 242, 262, 
272, 273, 277, 285 ; effect of 
growth on New France, 261- 
263 ; increased influence with the 
Indians, 262-264, ^^^ 5 'nt'^''- 
colonial relationship in I7';4, 278; 
rejection of the Albany Plan, 280 ; 
results of rejection, 281 ; troops 



raised for campaign of 1759, 343. 
See also New Engl?nd and colonies 
by name. 

Colonies, French, attempt at Sable 
Island, 6 ; attempted Huguenot, 
33 ; and the fur-trade interests, 
88. See also Acadia, Canada, 
Louisiana. 

Conde, Henri, Prince of, viceroy of 
New France, 82. 

Conestogas, name for the Susquehan- 
nocks, 48. 

Congregationalism, innovations of 
Brattle Church, 204 ; Saybrook 
Platform, 215-218 ; condition in 
early years of eighteenth century, 
220—222 ; outgrowth of Halfvvay 
Covenant, 221 ; effect of Edwards's 
teachings, 224. See also Great 
Awakening. 

Connecticut, civil liberalism, 211 
increased conservatism, 212-219 
Saybrook Platform, 2 1 5-2 1 8 
founding of Yale College, 218 
220 ; opposition to the Great 
Awakening, 230 ; share in the 
Louisburg expedition, 251 ; troops 
for campaign of 1759, 343. 

Contrecoeur commands Fort Du- 
quesne, 74, 288. 

Corey, Giles, character, 1 64 ; 
charged with witchcraft, 179 ; 
pressed to death, 180. 

Corey, Martha, wife of Giles, charac- 
ter, 164; accused of witchcraft, 
165 ; condemned, 180 ; executed, 
183. 

Cortereal, Gaspar, voyage, 6. 

Courcelle, Sieur de, governor of 
Canada, lol 5 invades the Iroquois 
country, 102; recalled, 115. 

Coureurs de bois, origin and nature, 
105. 

Crown Point, N. Y., Johnson to 
attack, 295 ; strategic value, 
327 ; evacuated by the French, 
348. Sec also Ticonderoga. 

Crovvne, William, English grant of 
Acadia, 96. 



INDEX 



365 



Cullender, Rose, trial for witchcraft, 
138-140. 

Dacotah Indians, first contact with 
whites, 99 ; character, 107. 

Dagonoweda, Mohawk chief, helps 
establish Iroquois confederacy, 47. 

Dale, Sir Thomas, governor of Vir- 
ginia, and the Jesuits, 79. 

D'Aunay Charnisay, Charles, Seign- 
eur, contest with La Tour in 
Acadia, 94 ; supported by the 
king, 95 ; death, 96 ; widow 
marries La Tour, 96. 

Davenport, James, revivalist, eccen- 
tricities, 227 ; arrested, 230. 

Davenport, John, opposes Halfway 
Covenant, 201. 

De Caen, Emery, trade monopoly in 
Canada, 89 ; abolished, 90. 

Delaware Indians in Ohio valley, 
263 5 become English allies, 341. 

Demarcation, bull of, opinion of 
Francis I., 8. 

Demoiselle, La, Miami chief, and 
Celoron, 278 ; killed, 279. 

Denys, Jean, French navigator, al- 
leged chart, 4—6. 

Desceliers, Pierre, French hydro- 
grapher, at Dieppe, 34. 

Diaz de Castillo, Bernal, Spanish 
historian, on Verrazano and Fran- 
cis I., 8. 

Dieppe, France, early trade with 
Africa, a ; and the Newfoundland 
fisheries, 33 ; as a centre of nau- 
tical science, 34 ; objects to the 
fur-trade monopoly, 37. See also 
Normandy. 

Dieskau, Baron, French general, 
sent to America, 28 1 ; advance 
from Crown Point, 297 ; am- 
bushes Johnson's scouts, 299 ; 
repulsed by Johnson, 299 ; cap- 
tured, 300. 

Dinwiddie, George, governor of Vir- 
ginia, sends Washington to warn 
off the French, 270 ; attempt to 
build a fort at Pittsburg frustrated, 



272 ; war measures impeded by 
the legislature, 272, 277. 

Dongan, Thomas, governor of New 
York, preserves Iroquois friend^ 
ship, 103. 

Donnacona, Canadian chief, 1 5 ; 
taken to France, 22. 

Dorchester, Mass., execution of a 
witch, 146. 

Drucour, Chevalier de, French gen- 
eral, commands Louisburg, 328. 

Dudley, Joseph, founder of New 
England Toryism, 201 5 governor 
of Massachusetts, 210; and the 
Mathers, 210. 

Dummer, William, lieutenant-gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, conflict 
with the Assembly, 243. 

Dunbar, Thomas, commands Brad- 
dock's rear detachment and re- 
treats, 292. 

Duny, Amy, trial for witchcraft, 
138-140. 

Duquesne, Marquis, governor of 
Canada, sends expedition to Ohio 
valley, 268 ; recalled, 282. 

Duval, treason at Quebec, 61. 

Easton, Penn., convention of Indian 
chiefs, 340. 

Easty, Mary, accusation and trial for 
witchcraft, 176-179; petition, 
181-183; execution, 183. 

Edict of Nantes issued, 35. 

Edwards, Jonathan, greatness, 222 ; 
mysticism, 223 ; emphasis on 
conversion, 224 ; revival of 
1734, 226; quarrel with his 
church, 231 ; president of Prince- 
ton, 231. 

Elizabeth, empress of Russia, and the 
Seven Years' War, 302. 

Elmina, Gold Coast, founded by 
Dieppe traders, 3. 

England, captures Acadia and Que- 
bec in 1628, 91 5 restores them, 
92 ; purpose of colonial enter- 
prise, 104; witchcraft trials, 
138-140, 143; Witch Act, 



366 



INDEX 



143 ; irrepressible conflict with 
France in America, 233, 239 ; 
in the war of the Austrian Suc- 
cession, 249 ; first troops sent for 
French and Indian War, 281 ; 
declares war on France, 301 ; 
allied with Prussia, 302. See also 
Colonies, French and Indian War. 
Entraigues, Henriette d', Henry 
IV. 's mistress, and the Jesuits, 

74- 

Erie, Penn. See Presqu'Isle. 

Eries, kin of Five Nations, 48 ; re- 
fuse to join confederacy, 48 ; 
consequent annihilation, 49. 

Europe, condition at end of sixteenth 
century, 34. 

Fagundes, Alvarez, Portuguese navi- 
gator, voyage, 7. 

Five Nations. See Iroquois. 

Florida, Huguenot colony, 33. 

Forbes, John, English general, char- 
acter, 336 ; expedition against 
Fort Duquesne, 336 ; lieutenants 
and force, 336; route, 337; 
method of advance, 337—339 ; 
Grant's defeat, 339 ; finds the 
fort deserted, 341 ; death, 342. 

Fort Crevecoeur, 111., built, 127 ; 
mutiny and destruction, 128. 

Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg), im- 
portance of location, 261, 263, 
326 ; rival English colonial claims 
to site, 268 ; English attempt to 
build a fort, 272 ; French build, 
272 ; Braddock prepares to march 
against, 283-285 ; his march, 
286-288 ; French force, 288 ; 
defeat of Braddock, 289-292 ; 
English 'etreat, 292 ; effect of 
destruction of Fort Frontenac, 
335, 340; Forbes' s expedition 
against, 337-340; isolated and 
abandoned, 341 ; named Fort Pitt, 

341- 
Fort Edward, N. Y., built, 296 ; 

Webb's force at, 311. 
Fort Frontenac (Kingston), Canada, 



built, 124; La Salle commands 
and rebuilds, 1 24 ; strategic value, 
3^6, 335 ; captured, 334 ; de- 
stroyed, 335. 

Fort Le Bceuf, Penn., French block- 
house, 268 ; Washington at, 
271. 

Fort Lyman. See Fort Edward. 

Fort Necessity, Penn., Washington 
builds, 275 ; battle and surrender, 
275. _ 

Fort Niagara, N. Y., failure of 
Shirley's expedition against, 294, 
300; Prideaux's expedition against, 
345 ; relief routed, 346 ; sur- 
render, 347. 

Fort Stanwix (Rome), N. Y., 
built, 335 5 purpose, 335. 

Fort William Henry, N. Y., Mont- 
calm advances against, 310-312; 
reinforced, 312 ; siege, 312 ; sur- 
render, 313; massacre, 314. 

France, war with Spain, 8, 12; 
civil wars, 32 ; condition at end 
of sixteenth centur)', 34, 35 ; 
policy in America, 62—64, I04> 
120-122, 132; takes possession 
of the Northwest, 107-109; 
claim to the Mississippi valley, 
1 30 ; irrepressible conflict with 
England in America, 233, 239; 
in war of Austrian Succession, 
249 ; first troops sent for French 
and Indian War, 281 ; England 
declares war, 301 ; in the Seven 
Years' War, 302 ; disasters in 
1759, 34-- ^^^ ''^^'' Canada, 
French and Indian War. 

Francis I. of France, on the bull of 
demarcation, 8 ; capture, 12 ; 
creates a viceroyalty in the New 
World, 22, 28. 

Franklin, Benjamin, Albany Plan, 
280 ; and Braddock, 284 ; on 
Loudoun, 307. 

Frederick the Great of Prussia, and 
the Seven Years' War, 301 ; 
allied with England, 302. 

French and Indian War, first move- 



INDEX 



367 



merits, 271-276; French and 
English troops sent to America, 
281 ; first naval battle, 282 ; first 
comprehensive plan, 285, 294 ; 
war declared, 301 ; strategic 
points, 326 ; English preparations 
for campaign of 1759, 343 ; plan 
of campaign of 1759, 344- "^''^ 
aho fortified places and generals by 
name. 

Frontenac, Louis de Buade, Count 
of, governor of Canada, 115; 
character and influence over the 
Indians, 116. 

Frontier, advance of English settle- 
ments, 259—264 ; Indian depre- 
dations, 301. See also Kennebec 
River, Ohio valley. 

Fry, Joshua, colonel Virginia militia, 
on the frontier, 273. 

Frye, Jonathan, in Lovewell's fight, 
246 ; death, 247 ; verses on, 248. 

Fur-trade, early French, on the 
Hudson, 28 ; monopoly of Cana- 
dian, 36-38, 49, 57, 59, 905 
Champlain controls, 82 ; interests 
opposed to settlement, 88 ; route, 
104, 261 ; diversion to the Eng- 
lish, 262. 

Gage, Thomas, lieutenant-colonel 
under Braddock, 289. 

Gastaldi, Jacopo, Italian geographer, 
map, 27. 

Gates, Horatio, with Braddock, 
289. 

General Court of Massachusetts, 
character under new charter, 185. 

Geneva, Switzerland, execution of 
witches, 142. 

Geography, alleged chart of Denys, 
4-6 ; Luiz's map, 7 ; Verra- 
zano'smap, 11 ; Maggiolo's map, 
1 1 5 Verrazano Sea, 1 1 ; carto- 
graphical union of Hudson and 
St. Lawrence rivers, 27. 

Germany, last execution for witch- 
craft, 144; emigration to the 
English colonics, 259. 



Gist, Christopher, with Washington, 
270 ; journal, 271 n. 

Glover, Mrs. , of Boston, executed 
for witchcraft, 148 ; confession, 
152. 

Good, Sarah, accused of witchcraft, 
162 ; execution, 180. 

Goodwin, John, his children be- 
witched, 148 ; Cotton Mather's 
connection with the case, 152— 

154- 

Governors, English colonial, con- 
flicts with the Assemblies, 242, 
243, 262, 272, 273, 277, 285. 

Grant, James, English major, disas- 
trous reconnoissance on Fort Du- 
quesne, 339; contempt for pro- 
vincials, 340. 

Grants, fur-trade monopoly, 36-38 
49) 59) 9° 5 o^ Acadia to Monts 
49 ; Madame de Guercheville's, 
76 5 of Nova Scotia to Alexander, 
93 ; of Acadia to Temple, 96 
See also Charter. 

Grave, Fran9ois. See Pontgrave. 

Great Awakening of 1734, 225- 
228 ; and the Halfway Covenant, 
225, 231 ; and Antinomianism, 

228 ; decline, 229 ; opposition, 

229 ; effect, 231. 

Griffin, La Salle's schooner, built, 
124 ; loss, 126. 

Groseilliers, Sieur des, explorations in 
the West, loi. 

Guercheville, Antoinette, Mar- 
chioness de, and the Jesuits, 74 ; 
grant, 76. 

Gulf of St. Lawrence, alleged dis- 
covery, 4 5 Fagundes's explora- 
tion, 7 ; Cartier in, 13, 14. 

Haldimand, Frederick, English colo- 
nel, restores and defends Oswego, 
345 ; manuscripts, 345 n. 

Hale, Sir Matthew, English jurist, 
belief in witchcraft, 138, 140. 

Hale, Mrs., of Beverly, accused of 
witchcraft, 184. 

Half-King, Indian chief on the 



368 



INDEX 



Ohio, unstable friendship, 269 ; 
warns Washington, 274 ; at Fort 
Necessity, 275. 

Halfway Covenant, 200 ; outgrowth, 
221 ; effect of the Great Awak- 
ening, 225, 231. 

Hallucinations, psychology, 191. 

Harvard College, Increase Mather 
non-resident president, 203, 208 j 
liberalism, 203, 208, 213, 214, 
219; question of the charter, 
206, 210; question of religious 
test for its officers, 207 ; Mather 
displaced and Willard made head, 
208 J Leverett president, 210 j 
condemns Whitefield, 229; Louis- 
burg cross, 256. 

Hathorne, John, judge of Salem 
witches, 169. 

Hebert, Louis, first farm at (luebec, 
89. 

Hendrick, Mohawk chief, at Lake 
George, 299 j killed, 299. 

Hennepin, Louis, character, 125 ; 
false claims, 126 ; with La Salle, 
126 ; sketches Niagara Falls, 
126. 

Henry IV. of France, grants mo- 
nopoly in fur-trade, 36, 38, 59 ; 
grant to Monts, 49 ; favours 
Champlain's scheme, 59 ; mur- 
dered, 73 ; results of abandoning 
his policy, 73- 

Hiawatha, Onondaga chief, con- 
ceives Iroquois confederacy, 47. 

Hibbins, Ann, execution for witch- 
craft, 146-148. 

Hobbs, Deliverance, confesses to 
witchcraft, 175. 

Hochelaga (Montreal), Cartier's 
visit, 16—19 5 typical Iroquois 
town, 18; destroyed, 42. Sec 
also Montreal. 

Holyoke, Edward, president of Har- 
vard, condemns Whitefield, 229. 

How, Elizabeth, executed for witch- 
craft, 168. 

Howe, George, Viscount, English 
general, Abercrombie's lieutenant. 



317; ancestry, 317; military 
insight, 319 ; death, 320 ; effect 
of his death, 320, 325 ; monu- 
ment, 321. 
Howe, Richard, Lord, intercepts 
French troops, 282 ; ancestry, 

317- 

Howe, Sir William, ancestry, 317 ; 
at (Quebec, 355. 

Hudson Bay and Vignau's story, 
83. 

Hudson River, Verrazano enters, 
10, 28 ; Allefonsce explores, 27; 
belief in its union with the St. 
Lawrence, 27 ; early French fiir- 
trade, 28. 

Huguenots, attempted colonies, 33 ; 
not allowed in Canada, 90. 

Huron Indians, kin to the Five Na- 
tions, 47 ; location, 48 ; refuse 
to join the confederacy, 48 5 con- 
sequent annihilation, 49, loi ; 
allied with Algonquins, 49, 64 ; 
friendship necessary to the French, 

63, 64 J and Champlain attack 
an Iroquois village, 86—88 j rem- 
nants in Ohio valley, 263. 

Illinois, Algonquin Indians, Nicol- 
let encounters, 100; Iroquois in- 
vade, 129, 263. 

Indians, facetiousness, 22, 66 ; mi- 
grations, 43 ; pestilence in Massa- 
chusetts, 54 ; French policy, 62- 

64, 70, 71, 105, 239; consult- 
ing of tutelary spirits, 67 ; war- 
fare, 68-70, 283 ; missions, 86, 
89, 92, 103 ; Northwest tribes, 
99, 1065 and Frontenac, 116; 
idea of land selling, 238 ; both 
French and English incite Indian 
raids, 239-241 ; destruction of 
Maine, 243, 244 ; bounty for 
their scalps, 245 ; Lovewell's 
fight, 245-248 ; decline of French 
influence, 261—267 ; Ohio valley 
tribes, 263 ; vacillation, 269 ; as 
French allies, 288, 298, 301, 
308, 310, 313-315, 338, 3465 



INDEX 



369 



as English allies, 297, 300, 341 ; 
convention of chiefs at Easton, 
340. See also Algonquin, Hu- 
ron, Iroquois. 

Innocent VIII., pope, bull against 
witchcraft, 141. 

Intendant of Canada, duties, 102. 

Iroquois Indians, at Hochelaga, 1 8 j 
driven from the St. Lawrence by 
Algonquins, 42-44 ; settlement 
in New York, 44 ; tribes, 45 ; 
advantages of situation, 46 ; con- 
federacy, 46 ; origin of the five 
tribes, 46 ; destruction of outlying 
tribes, 47-49, loi ; first fight 
with Frenchmen, 68-70; results, 
70, 71 ; second defeat by the 
French, 80 ; Champlain attacks 
a village, 86-88 ; destroy the 
Hurons, loi ; Courcelles' inva- 
sion, 102 ; effect, 103 ; friend- 
ship for the English, 103 ; tem- 
porary French infiuence, 262 ; 
power in the Ohio valley, 263 ; 
and the Albany Congress, 279 ; 
with Johnson's army, 297 ; atti- 
tude in French and Indian War, 
340- 

Jacobs, George, executed for witch- 
craft, 167. 

James I. of England, Damono/ogie, 
142. 

Japan, St. Francis Xavier in, 74. 

Jesuits, growth and power, 73 ; 
spirit of propaganda, 74, 100; 
at Port Royal, 75 ; with La 
Saussaye at Mount Desert, 76 ; 
treatment by Argall and Dale, 
78, 79 ; supreme in Canada, 
100. 

Jogues, Isaac, Jesuit missionary, at 
outlet of Lake Superior, 100. 

Johnson, William, influence over the 
Iroquois, 263 ; selected to attack 
Crown Point, 294, 295 ; charac- 
ter of his army, 296 ; advance, 
296 ; scouts ambushed, 299 ; 
defeats Dieskau, 299 ; made a 



baronet, 300 ; fails to pursue the 
French, 300 ; second in com- 
mand against Fort Niagara, 345 j 
takes command, 346 ; defeats re- 
lief forc«, 347 ; captures the fort, 

347- 

Joliet, Louis, education, 113, 117 ; 
exploration for copper mines, 114; 
sent to find the Mississippi, 115, 
116; on the Mississippi, 118- 
120. 

Joncaire-Chabert and Washington at 
Venango, 270, 271. 

Jones, Margaret, executed for witch- 
craft, 145. 

Jumonville, Coulon de, surprised and 
killed by Washington, 274. 

Kennebec River, Maine, Champlain 
ascends, 53 ; importance to Can- 
ada, 234 ; Indians, 235 ; Shute's 
conference with the Indians, 239; 
Indians attack English settlements, 
241 5 French control destroyed, 
243, 244. 

Kirke, David, attack on Quebec, 
91, 92. 

La Corne, Saint-Luc de, French 
parrisan, unsuccessful attack on 
Oswego, 346. 

La Galissoniere, Marquis de, gov- 
ernor of Canada, sends expedition 
to claim Ohio valley, 264. 

La Salle, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de, 
birth and early life, 109 ; charac- 
ter, no, 114, 123 ; at La Chine, 
llo; expedition to the Ohio, 
111-115 ; on the Great Lakes, 
115; reputed trip to the Missis- 
sippi, 115 ; scheme for French 
empire, 120—122, 132; opposi- 
tion, 123, 125 ; commands and 
rebuilds Fort Frontenac, 1 24 ; 
builds schooner Griffin, 124 ; 
discomfitures, 126-128 ; voyage 
to head of Lake Michigan, 126 ; 
loss of the Griffin, 126 ; builds 
Fort Crcvecoeur, 127; overland 



370 



INDEX 



return to Montreal, 127 ; and the 
CreveccBur mutineers, 128 ; goes 
to rescue Tonty, 129; descends 
the Mississippi, 130; takes pos- 
session for France, i 30 ; plan for 
a colony, 131 ; death, 132; de- 
velopment of his scheme, 258. 

La Saussaye, chief of Jesuit colony, 
at Port Royal, 76 ; attacked by 
Argall at Mount Desert, 76-78 ; 
set adrift but rescued, 78. 

La Tour, Charles de, succeeds Bien- 
court in Acadia, 93 ; relations 
with England and France, 94- 
96; contest with D'Aunay, 94 ; 
marries D'Aunay's widow, 96 ; 
retires, 96. 

La Tour, Claude de, father of Charles, 
captured and enters English ser- 
vice, 93 ; and his son, 94. 

Lake Champlain, Champlain crosses, 
66; strategic value, 327. 

Lake George, named, 297 ; battle, 
297-300. See also Fort William 
Henry. 

Lake Huron, discovery, 86. 

Lake Michigan, Nicollet's explora- 
tions, 99. 

Lake Ontario, Champlain crosses, 87. 

Lake Superior, Jogues at outlet, 
100 ; explored, 1 01. 

Lalemant, Gabriel, Jesuit missionary, 
arrives in Canada, 89. 

Land, Indian ideas of selling, 238. 

Langlade, Charles de, French trader, 
destroys Miami trading village, 
267 ; at Fort Duquesne, 288. 

Langy, French partisan, encounter 
with Howe's scouting party, 319. 

Lawson, Deodat, lecture on witch- 
craft, 167. 

Le Caron, Joseph, Recollet mission- 
ary, reaches Lake Huron, 86. 

Lee, Charles, with Braddock, 289. 

Lery, Baron de, attempted colony on 
Sable Island, 6. 

Lescarbot, Marc, in Acadia with 
Monts, 51 ; as an author, 51 5 
pageant for Poutrincourt, 55. 



Leverett, John, liberal views, 203 ; 
president of Harvard, 210. 

Lewis, Mercy, and the Salem witch- 
craft, 160. See also Salem Vil- 
lage. 

Ligneris, French partisan, attempt 
to relieve Fort Niagara, 346. 

Longfellow, H. W., on Cotton 
Mather's connection with the 
Salem witchcraft, 151, 187. 

Loudoun, Earl of, English com- 
mander-in-chief in America, 306 ; 
character, 307 ; plans to attack 
Ticonderoga, 307 ; futile expedi- 
tion against Louisburg, 310 ; re- 
called, 317. 

Louis XIV. of France, and Canada, 
101 ; pardons witches, 133. 

Louisburg, Cape Breton Island, for- 
tified, 249 ; colonial project to 
capture in war of the Austrian 
Succession, 250 j attacking mili- 
tary force, 251 ; attacking naval 
force, 252, 255 ; progress of the 
attack, 253-256 ; surrender, 
256; Loudoun's expedition against, 
in French and Indian War, 310 ; 
strategic value, 327 ; restored to 
France by treaty of Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, 328 ; situation and defences, 
328 ; English expedition against, 
in 1758, 329; landing effected, 
329; reduction of outer works, 
330; bombardment, 331 ; French 
fleet destroyed, 3 3 1 ; surrender, 

Louisiana, possession taken for 
France, 130; La Salle's attempted 
colony, 131 ; develojiment, 258. 
See also Canada, Mississippi River. 

Lovewell, John, Massachusetts cap- 
tain, fight with the Indians, 245- 
247 ; death, 247 ; ballad on the 
fight, 247. 

Luiz, Lazaio, map, 7. 

Lyman, Phineas, Connecticut gen= 
eral, Johnson's lieutenant, 295 ; 
credit for battle at Lake George, 
300. 



INDEX 



371 



Maggiolo, Vesconte, map, ii. 

Maine, advance of settlement, 237. 
See also Kennebec River. 

Malleus Malefic arum, 142. 

Maria Theresa, queen of Hun- 
gary, and the Seven Years' War, 
302. 

Marie de Medicis, widow of Henry 
IV., and the Jesuits, 74. 

Marin, French officer, expedition to 
the Ohio valley, 268. 

Marin, French partisan, attempt to 
relieve Fort Niagara, 346. 

Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit mission- 
ary, character, 117; on the 
Mississippi, 118-120; death, 
120. 

Martin, Susannah, executed for 
witchcraft, 168. 

Mascoutins, Algonquin Indians on 
Lake Michigan, 99. 

Massachusetts, early witchcraft trials, 
145-149 ; change in character of 
General Court under new charter, 
185 ; opposition to the theocracy, 
197, 201 ; Halfway Covenant, 
200 ; Andros's rule, 202 ; new 
charter, 202 ; liberalism com- 
pared with Connecticut, 212-215, 
220 ; conflicts between governor 
and Assembly, 242, 243 ; expe- 
dition against Kennebec Indians, 
243 ; bounty for Indian scalps, 
245 5 share in the Louisburg ex- 
pedition, 251 ; monument to 
George, Viscount Howe, 321 ; 
troops for campaign of 1759, 
343. &e a/io Great Awakening, 
Salem Village. 

Masse, Enemond, Jesuit missionary, 
arrives in Canada, 89. 

Mather, Cotton, attainments, 149 ; 
character, 1 50 ; and the Salem 
witchcraft, 150-152, 155, 170- 
173, 186, 197 ; connection with 
the Goodwin witchcraft case, 152- 
155 ; religious conservatism, 197, 
205, 206 ; and Harvard College, 
209. 



Mather, Increase, Cases of Con- 
science,, 186 ; religious conser- 
vatism, 197, 206 J effort to ob- 
tain a charter for Massachusetts, 
202 5 non-resident president of 
Harvard, 203, 208 ; displaced, 
208. 

Menard, Rene, Jesuit missionary, 
explores Lake Superior, loi. 

Mercoeur, Duke de, and Roche, 

35- 
Mexico, Champlain in, 40. 

Miamis, Algonquin Indians in Ohio 
valley, 263 ; Celoron among, 
266 ; English influence, 267 ; 
French attack, 267. 

Mingos, Iroquois Indians in Ohio 
valley, 263 ; English allies, 341. 

Missions to the Indians, French, Re- 
collets arrive, 86 ; Jesuits arrive, 
89 ; paramount interest, 92 ; ex- 
tent, 103. 

Mississippi River, Nicollet unwit- 
tingly hears of, 100 ; AUouez 
hears of, 106 ; question of its 
mouth, 106, III, 119; La 
Salle's reputed trip, I15 ; Mar- 
quette and Joliet on, 118-120; 
La Salle descends, 130. 

Missouri River, Joliet and Marquette 
discover, 119. 

Mohawks, Iroquois Indians, mean- 
ing of name, 45 ; segregated from 
the Onondagas, 47. See also Iro- 
quois. 

Monckton, Robert, English colonel, 
to attack the French from Acadia, 
294. 

Monopoly in Canada, fur-trade, 36— 
38, 49». 57, 59» 90; general 
commercial, 90. 

Monro, English colonel, defends Fort 
William Henry, 312 ; surrenders, 

313- 
Montagnais, name for the Adiron- 

dacks, 63. 
Montcalm, Louis Joseph, Marquis 

de, French commander-in-chief 

in America, 303 ; character. 



372 



INDEX 



303 ; voyage to America, 304 ; 
and Vaudreuil, 305 ; captures Os- 
wego, 308 ; expedition against Fort 
WiUiam Henry, 310-312; siege 
and surrender of the fort, 312 ; 
unable to prevent a massacre, 313- 
315; defences at Ticonderoga, 
321 ; repulses Abercrombie's at- 
tack, 324 ; defence of Quebec, 
350 ; battle of Plains of Abra- 
ham, 356 ; mortally wounded, 
358. 

Montmorency, Duke of, sells vice- 
royalty, 89. 

Montreal, named, 20 ; founded, 
82 5 captured, 359. See also 
Hochelaga. 

Monts, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de, 
monopoly of fur-trade, 36 ; grant, 
49 5 voyage to Acadia, 50 ; 
monopoly withdrawn, 57 ; tem- 
porary renewal of monopoly, 59 ; 
governor of Pons, 81 ; gives up 
Canadian affairs, 81. See also 
Acadia, Port Royal. 

Mount Desert, Maine, discovered, 
52 ; La Saussaye and Argall at, 
76-78. 

Nausett Island, submerged, 54. 

New England, Champlain on the 
coast, 52-55; conquers Acadia, 
96 ; purpose of settlement, 104 ; 
gloomy outlook in 1692, 156; 
advance of settlement in Maine, 
237; Indian depredations, 241; 
captures Louisburg, 250-256. 
See also colonies by name. 

New France. See Canada, Louisi- 
ana. 

New Hampshire, share in Louisburg 
expedition, 251 ; troops for cam- 
paign of 1759, 343. 

New Haven annexed to Connecticut, 
211 n. 

New Jersey, troops for campaign of 

1759, 343- 
New Orleans, battle of, and Ticon- 
deroga, 323. 



New York, troops for campaign 
of 1759, 343- ^^^ "^^^ I"""" 
quois. 

Newcastle, Duke of, and the attack 
on Louisburg, 253. 

Newfoundland, question of pre- 
Cabotian voyages, 3 ; exploitation 
of the fisheries, 4, 7, 33. 

Niagara Falls, Champlain hears of, 
59 ; La Salle hears, 1 13; Hen- 
nepin sketches, 126. 

Niagara River. See Fort Niagara. 

Nicollet, Jean, among the Indians, 
98 ; sent to find the western 
"great water," 98; explores 
Lake Michigan, 99, 100 ; hears 
of the Mississippi, 99. 

Normandy, France, race character- 
istics, I ; mariners, 2 ; early in- 
terest in Newfoundland fisheries, 
3 ; objects to trade monopoly in 
Canada, 37, 57 ; condemnation 
of witches, 133- See also 
Dieppe. 

Norridgewock, Maine, village of 
Christianized Algonquin Indians, 
importance of location, 235 ; 
Rale in, 2.35-i37; construction, 
236 ; inhabitants take the war 
path, 241 ; stormed, 243 ; tribe 
exterminated, 244. 

North America identified with Asia, 
22. 

Northampton, Mass., development 
of Halfway Covenant in church 
at, 222 ; beginning of Great 
Awakening, 226 ; church quar- 
rel with Edwards, 231. 

Northwest, route used by the French, 
104; Indian conditions in 1670, 
105-107 ; France takes posses- 
sion, 107-109. 

Northwest passage, why sought, 9 ; 
Verrazano seeks, 10 ; Cartier 
seeks, 14. 

Norumbega, location, 27, 28 ; Al- 
lefonsce at, 27 ; Penobscot River 
so called, 52. 

Nova Scotia. See Acadia. 



INDEX 



373 



Noyes, Nicholas, and the Salem 
witches, 1 80. 

Nurse, Rebecca, accused of witch- 
craft, 165 ; judges force convic- 
tion, 174. 

Ohio River, La SaUe hears of, 1 1 1 ; 
La Salle's expedition, 1 11— 115. 
See also next title. 

Ohio valley, beginnings of English 
occupation, 260, 264 ; effect on 
the French, 261 ; Indians, 263 ; 
power of the Iroquois, 263 ; 
French influence over the Indians, 
264, 266, 269 5 French posses- 
sion asserted, 264-267 ; Du- 
quesne sends expedition to control, 
268 ; Washington's mission, 270, 
271 ; Fort Duquesne built, 272 ; 
failure of Washington's expedition, 
273-276 ; effect of Fort Du- 
quesne on English prestige, 277, 
293 ; English gain control, 340. 
See also Fort Duquesne. 

Ojibways, Algonquin Indians, loca- 
tion, 99 ; French friendship, 105. 

Old Britain. See Demoiselle. 

Old South Church, Boston, founded, 
201. 

One Hundred Associates, privileges 
and duties, 90 ; first expedition 
captured by English, 91. 

Oneidas, Iroquois Indians, meaning 
of name, 45 ; segregated from 
Mohawks, 47. See also Iro- 
quois. 

Onondagas, Iroquois Indians, mean- 
ing of name, 45. 

Organizations, tendency to rigidity, 
213. 

Osburn, Sarah, accused of witch- 
craft, 162. 

Oswego, N. Y., importance of 
founding, 262 ; captured by the 
French, 308 ; destroyed, 309 ; 
effect of capture, 309 ; rebuilt, 
345 ; successfully defended, 346. 

Ottawas, Algonquin Indians in Can- 
ada, 64 J war party with Cham- 



plain, 65-70 ; Champlain among, 
84 ; driven westward by the Iro- 
quois, 106. 

Panama, Champlain suggests a canal 
at, 41. 

Parliament, Witch Act, 143. 

Parris, Elizabeth, and the Salem 
witchcraft, 159. See also Salem 
Village. 

Parris, Samuel, minister of Salem 
Village, 157; church troubles, 
158; his household and the begin- 
nings of the witchcraft delusion, 
159-161, 192. 

Pennsylvania, western claim, 268 ; 
attitude of the Assembly on Fort 
Duquesne, 277 ; troops for cam- 
paign of 1759, 343-_ 

Penobscot River, Maine, explored 
by Champlain, 52 ; called No- 
rumbega, 52. 

Pepperell, William, commands the 
attack on Louisburg, 251 ; cre- 
ated a baronet, 256. 

Pequawket Indians, Lovewell's fight, 
246-248. 

Philip II. of Spain, death, 35. 

Phips, Sir William, governor of 
Massachusetts, 169, 203 ; wife 
accused of witchcraft, 184. 

Physical science, effect on belief in 
witchcraft, 137. 

PickawiUany, Ohio, Miami trading 
village, Celoron at, 266 ; de- 
stroyed by the French, 267. 

Pitt, William, controls war affairs, 
315; character, 315; popularity, 
316 ; policy of destruction of 
New France, 342. 

Pittsburg, Penn., named, 341. See 
also Fort Duquesne. 

Pomeroy, Benjamin, punished for 
revivalism, 230. 

Pomeroy, Seth, in Johnson's army, 
296. 

Pontgrave (Francois Grave, Sieur du 
Pont), monopoly of the fur-trade, 
36, 37; and Champlain in Can- 
ada, 41, 60, 62. 



374 



INDEX 



Pontiac, Ottawa chief, at Fort Du- 
quesne, 289. 

Poole, W. F., on Cotton Mather 
and the Salem witchcraft, 152. 

Port Royal (Annapolis), Acadia, 
founded, 52 ; Lescarbot's pageant, 
55 ; early life at, 56 ; Poutrincourt 
returns to, 72 ; Jesuits arrive, 
75 5 burned by Argall, 79 ; re- 
built, 79 ; D'Aunay controls, 
94 ; French attack, 250. See 
also Acadia. 

Portugal, voyages to northwest, 6, 
7 ; interest in Newfoundland fish- 
eries, 7. 

Post, C. F., Moravian missionary, 
secures Indian alliance for the 
English, 341. 

Pottawattamies, Algonquin Indians 
on Lake Michigan, Allouez meets, 
100 ; French friendship, 105 5 
Sulpicians attempt to convert, 
114. 

Pouchot, M., French captain, de- 
fends Fort Niagara, 346 ; sur- 
renders, 347. 

Poutrincourt, Baron de, in Acadia 
with Monts, 51 ; founds Port 
Royal, 52 ; on the coast of New 
England, 54 ; greeting at Port 
Royal, 55 ; returns to Port Royal, 
72; and the Jesuits, 75 ; death, 

79- 

Presbyterianism, tendency in Con- 
necticut, 215-218. 

Presqu'Isle (Erie), Penn., French 
blockhouse, 268. 

Prideaux, John, English general, ex- 
pedition against Fort Niagara, 345 ; 
killed, 346. 

Prince, Thomas, on decline of the 
Great Awakening, 229. 

Princeton College, Edwards presi- 
dent, 231. 

Proctor, John, executed for witch- 
craft, 167, 168. 

Putnam, Ann, wife of Thomas, 
and the Salem witchcraft, 1 60, 
1 94. See also Salem Village. 



Putnam, Ann, daughter of Thomas, 
and the Salem witchcraft, 1 60 ; 
confession, 186. See also Salem 
Village. 

Putnam, Israel, in Johnson's army, 
296 ; in Abercrombie's army, 
320 ; rescued from the stake, 
333- 

Quebec, meaning of the name, 60 ; 
founded, 60 ; treason in, 61 ; 
first winter, 62 j early conditions, 
88, 90 ; attacked by the English 
in 1628, 91 J surrender, 92; 
restored to France, 92 ; unsuc- 
cessful expedition against, in I 690, 
156 ; situation, 349 ; position of 
French army in 1759, 350; 
problems of attack, 351 ; Wolfe 
prepares to get above, 352-355 ; 
bombardment, 353 ; English as- 
cend to Plains of Abraham, 355 ; 
battle, 356-358 ; fall, 359. See 
also Stadacona. 

Radisson, Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur, ex- 
plorations, loi. 

Rale, Sebastian, Jesuit missionaiy, 
at Norridgewock, 235-237 ; ex- 
cites attacks on the English, 237, 
238, 241 ; controversy with Bax- 
ter, 239 ; killed, 244 ; character, 
244. 

RavaiUac, assassin of Henry IV., 

73- 

RecoUets arrive in Canada, 86. 

Religion, effect of rigid organization, 
213; condition in early years of 
eighteenth century, 220—222 ; 
Edwards on conversion, 224 ; re- 
vivals, 225 ; Great Awakening 
in New England, 226-232. See 
also Church and State, Congrega- 
tionalism, Missions. 

Remigio, inquisitor, execution of 
witches by, 142. 

Renata, Maria, executed for witch- 
craft, 144. 

Rhode Island, share in Louisburg 



INDEX 



375 



expedition, 251 ; troops for cam- 
paign of 1759, 343. 
Ribaut, Jean, attempted colony in 

Florida, 33. 
Richelieu, Cardinal, measures for 

New France, 90. 
Roberval, Jean Fran<;ois, Sieur de, 

his New World titles, 22, 28 ; 

arrives in Canada, 24 ; divides 

his expedition, 24 ; to found a 

colony, 29 ; and his niece, 30 ; 

character, 30, 31 ; failure of the 

colony, 31 ; death, 32. 
Roberval, Marguerite, niece of the 

Sieur de, romance, 30. 
Roche, Marquis de la, voyage to 

Canada, 35. 
Rogers, Susanna, verses on Frye, 

248. 
Royal Americans in Forbes's army, 

337- 

Sable Island, attempted colony, 6. 

Saguenay River, Canada, Roberval 
explores, 31. 

Saint Francis Xavier in Japan, 74. 

St. Lawrence River, Aubert's al- 
leged voyage, 4 ; Cartier explores, 
14; impressiveness, 15; notion 
of union with the Hudson, 27. 

St. Louis on the Illinois River, 
founded, 131. 

St. Lusson, Sieur de, takes posses- 
sion of the Northwest for France, 
107-109. 

St. Malo, Brittany, opposition to 
fur-trade monopoly, 36. See also 
Brittany. 

Saint-Pierre, Legardeur de, expedi- 
tion to Ohio valley, 269 ; with 
Dieskau, 298 ; killed, 299. 

Salem Village (Danvers), Mass., 
Cotton Mather's connection with 
the witchcraft delusion, 150-152, 
155, 170-173, 186, 197 5 biblio- 
graphy of the witchcraft, 151 n. 5 
situation, 157 ; church troubles, 
157-159; beginnings of the witch- 
craft troubles, 159— 161 ; persons 



accused, 161-169, 184; malice 
as an element in the accusations, 
165, 167-169, 180-191, 1955 
special court, 169 ; recommenda- 
tions of the ministers, 170-172 ; 
convictions on spectral evidence, 
173; trials, 174-180 ; execu- 
tions, 179, 180, 186; protes' 
tations of innocence, 180-183 i 
reaction, 183—185 ; special court 
abolished, 186 ; confessions of 
miscarriage of justice, 188 ; ex- 
planation of the delusion, 189- 
195 ; historical importance of 
the troubles, 195 ; reaction on 
the clergy, 197. See also Witch- 
craft. 

Saybrook Platform, 215-218. 

Schuyler family, influence over the 
Iroquois, 103, 263. 

Scotch-Irish immigrants, settlement, 
259. 

Scotland, witchcraft trials, 142, 143. 

Secalart, Paulin de, French geogra- 
pher, and AUefonsce's narrative, 
26. 

Sedgwick, Robert, Massachusetts 
major, conquers Acadia, 96. 

Senecas, Iroquois Indians, 45 ; segre- 
gated from the Onondagas, 47 ; 
and La Salle's expedition to the 
Ohio, 111-113. See also Iro- 
quois. 

Seven Years' War, beginning, 301. 
See also French and Indian War. 

Sewall, Samuel, judge of Salem 
witches, 1 70 ; public acknow- 
ledgment of error, 188 ; on In- 
crease Mather's displacement from 
presidency of Harvard, 209. 

Shawnees, Algonquin Indians in 
Ohio valley, 263 ; English allies, 

357- 

Sheldon, Susannah, and the Salem 
witchcraft, 1 60. See also Salem 
Village. 

Shirley, William, governor of Massa- 
chusetts, project to attack Louis- 
burg, 250 J and his Assembly, 



376 



INDEX 



278, 294; suggests a stamp tax, 
281 ; part in the first campaign, 
294 ; failure of expedition against 
Fort Niagara, 300 ; superseded as 
commander-in-chief, 306. 

Shute, Samuel, governor of Massa- 
chusetts, conference with the 
Maine Indians, 239 ; conflict 
with the Assembly, 242 ; sails 
suddenly for England, 242. 

Soissons, Charles, Count of, viceroy 
of New France, 81. 

Soto, Fernando de, explorations un- 
known to La Salle, 121. 

South Carolina, troops for campaign 

of 1759, 343- 

Stadacona (Quebec), Cartier at, 15 ; 
jealous of his visit to Hochelaga, 
16 ; he winters at, 20 ; destroyed, 
42. 

Stamp tax, reasons for, 243, 273, 
281. 

Stark, John, in Johnson's army, 
296. 

Stoddard, Solomon, and the Halfway 
Covenant, 222. 

Stoughton, William, judge of the 
Salem witches, 169. 

Suffrage, under new charter of Mas- 
sachusetts, 185, 202 ; theocratic 
restrictions in Massachusetts, 197 ; 
Halfway Covenant, 200. 

Sully, Duke of, opposes Champlain's 
scheme, 59. 

Sulpicians, expedition with La Salle, 
iii-i 14. 

Susquehannocks, kin to the Five 
Nations, 48 ; refuse to join the 
confederacy, 48 ; consequent an- 
nihilation, 49. 

Sylvanus, Bernadus, Italian carto- 
grapher. Gulf of St. Lawrence in 
his edition of Ptolemy, 5. 

Tac, Sixte le, Recollet missionary, 
on AUefonsce's voyage, 25. 

Tadousac, Canada, headquarters of 
Pontgrave's monopoly, 37. 

Talon, Jean Baptiste, intendant of 



Canada, policy, 102 ; recalled, 

"5- 

Temple, Sir Thomas, English grant 
of Acadia, 96. 

Tennent, Gilbert, revivalist, 227. 

Tessouat, Ottawa chief, and Cham- 
plain, 84. 

Theocracy. See Church and State. 

Thevet, Andre, on Roberval's ad- 
ventures, 29. 

Ticonderoga, N. Y., meaning of 
name, 68 ; site of Champlain's 
first Indian battle, 68, 70 ; Lou- 
doun plans to attack, 307 ; Aber- 
crombie's expedition against, 318— 
321 ; defences, 321 ; possible 
methods of attack, 322 5 and 
battles of Bunker Hill and New 
Orleans, 323 ; assault and re- 
pulse, 324 ; English retreat, 325 ; 
strategic value, 327 ; Amherst's 
expedition against, 347 ; evacuated 
by the French, 348. 

Tituba, servant of Parris, and the 
beginnings of the Salem witch- 
craft, 159, 192; accused of 
witchcraft, 162; king's evidence, 
162, 163 ; sold into slavery, 

179- . 

Tonty, Henri de. La Salle's lieu- 
tenant, 125 ; commands Fort 
CreveccBur, 127 ; driven away by 
mutineers, 128 ; reunion with 
La Salle, 130. 

Toryism and opposition to Massa- 
chusetts theocracy, 201. 

Tracy, Marquis de, military com- 
mander in Canada, 1 01. 

Trade, effect of rise of, on religion, 
221. See alio Fur-trade. 

Treaties, St. Germain-en-Laye, 92 ; 
Utrecht, 233 ; Aix-la-Chapelle, 
258. 

Union, Iroquois confederacy, 46 ; 

need of colonial, in 1754, 279 ; 

Albany Plan, 280. 
Unitarianism as a gauge of liberalism, 

212. 



INDEX 



377 



Vaudreuil, Philippe de, governor of 
Canada, policy, 239, 241. 

Vaudreuil, Pierre Francois, Marquis 
de, governor of Canada, 282 ; 
and Montcalm, 305. 

Vaughan, William, project to cap- 
ture Louisburg, 250 ; occupies 
the grand battery at Louisburg, 
254. 

Venango, Penn., Washington and 
Joncaire at, 269—271. 

Ventadour, Duke of, viceroy of 
New France, 89 ; sends Jesuits, 

Verrazano, Giovanni da, and Au- 
bert, 4 5 captures Spanish treasure 
ships, 8 ; purpose of his voyage, 
9; course, 10; Verrazano Sea, 
II ; death, 12. 

Verrazano, Girolamo, map, 11. 

Verrazano Sea, origin of the idea, 
II; on maps, 1 1 ; influence, 
1 1 ; Allefonsce seeks, 24. 

Vignau, Nicolas de, story of adven- 
tures, 82 ; probable basis of truth, 
83 ; sequel, 85. 

Villegagnon, Nicholas de, attempted 
colony in Brazil, 33. 

Villiers, Coulon de, at Fort Neces- 
sity, 275. 

Virginia, Assembly impedes Dinwid- 
dle's war measures, 272, 277 5 
troops in Braddock's expedition, 
287; troops for campaign of 1 7 5 9, 
343. See also Fort Duquesne. 

Voyages, pre-Cabotian, to New- 
foundland fisheries, 3 ; alleged, 
of Denys and Aubert, 4-6 ; of 
Fagundes, 7; Verrazano' s, 9- 
II ; Cartier's, 13-24, 31 ; Alle- 
fonsce's, 24—29 ; Roche's, 35 ; 
Champlain's, 42, 52-55. 

Vumenot, Maugis, on Allefonsce's 
voyage, 26. 

Walcott, Mary, and the Salem 
witchcraft, 159. &e aAo Salem 
Village. 

Warfare, character of border, 240 ; 



Indian, 283 ; former popularity 
of convergent movements, 343. 

Warren, Mary, and the Salem witch- 
craft, I 60. See alio Salem Vil- 
lage. 

Warren, Peter, English commodore, 
and the attack on Louisburg, 
252, 256. 

Washington, George, mission to the 
French in Ohio valley, 270, 
271 ; driven from site of Fort 
Duquesne, 272 ; advance against 
Fort Duquesne, 273 ; surprises 
Jumonville, 274 ; question of per- 
fidy, 274 ; at Fort Necessity, 
275 ; surrender and retreat, 276 ; 
at Braddock's defeat, 291, 292 5 
with Forbes, 337. 

Webb, Daniel, English general, with 
Loudoun, 306 ; tardy reinforce- 
ment for Oswego, 308 ; at Fort 
Edward, 312. 

West Indies, Champlain in, 40. 

Westbrook, Thomas, Massachusetts 
colonel, expedition against Maine 
Indians, 243. 

Whitefield, George, revival in New 
England, 226 ; second visit to 
New England, 229 ; motto for 
Louisburg expedition, 252. 

Wildes, Sarah, executed for witch- 
craft, 168. 

Willard, John, executed for witch- 
craft, 168. 

Willard, Samuel, accused of witch- 
craft, 1 84 ; non-resident vice- 
president of Harvard, 208 ; be- 
comes head of the college, 209. 

Williams, Abigail, and the Salem 
witchcraft, 159. See aho Salem 
Village. 

Winnebagoes, Dacotah Indians on 
Lake Michigan, Nicollet meets, 

99- 

Winsor, Justin, on Allefonsce's voy- 
age, 25. 

Winthrop, John, on witchcraft, 
145. _ 

Wisconsin River, AUouez at its 



378 



INDEX 



head, 1 06 ; Joliet and Marquette 
descend, 118. 
Witchcraft, condemnation for, in 
Normandy, 133; universal be- 
lief in, 134-137; bibliography, 
135 n., 152 n. ; rise of scepti- 
cism, 137; specimen English 
trial, 1 38-140; epidemic of 
condemnations, 140-143, 205 ; 
papal bull against, 141 ; text- 
book, 142; James I.'s treatise, 

142 ; Witch Act in England, 

143 ; trials in England, 143 ; 
last trials, 143 ; comparatively 
few cases in America, 144 ; early 
trials in Massachusetts, 145-148 ; 
the Goodwin case, 148, 152- 
155. See alio Salem Village. 



Wolfe, James, English general, ar- 
rives in America, 317; effects a 
landing at Louisburg, 330 ; credit 
for capture of Louisburg, 332; 
sent against Quebec, 344 ; prob- 
lems, 351 ; illness, 352 ; project 
to get above the city, 352 ; pre- 
parations, 354; ascent to Plains 
of Abraham, 355 ; battle, 356; 
death, 357. 

Wyandottes, Huron Indians in Ohio 
valley, 263. 

Yale, Elihu, endows Yale College, 

219. 
Yale College, conservatism, 213, 

218 ; founded, 218. 



THE END 



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